You Can Write it on My Grave
by Natsu
Summary: A story about hitting the quarter-life crisis and why moving in with your super-best doesn't always work so well. In which Kyle is uptight, Stan is a mess, Kenny knows too much and Cartman...is faring better than all of them. Slash. K/K/S triangle.
1. Chapter 1

You Can Write it on My Grave

+ Natsu +

A/N: Um. I am like, the most shocked and appalled at myself. I have not written fanfic in a long, long, long, long time. But apparently...the stress of my new job and grad studies combined has just been too much. This gushed out. I couldn't stop it.

Please forgive me South Park. I don't know how I could let this happen...

* * *

To Kyle's complete and utter surprise, he had grown up attractive. Fucked if he'd seen it coming, but it was a blatant fact. He actually likedthe way he looked. Even more incredibly, other people liked the way he looked. After years of mentally preparing himself for a seemingly inevitable adult life of pale skin, twig-like limbs and inadequate height he had almost puked with joy when he finally beat Cartman at the growing game and gained an extra two inches on his nemesis the summer after tenth grade. That was freaking karma, man. Right there.

Kyle had made it to taller than Kenny as well, who frankly, had been kind of stunted by years of Pop Tart dinners so had really had a pretty tough deal. Even Stan had only the barest whisper of height over him and the difference between them was so insignificant, they'd had to use an actual metre rule to settle that one. Kyle still maintained that the difference between them was practically tiny enough to be written off anyway, considering they were so near to being even that they were eye to eye if they stood close enough. It totally made sense to round these things up.

Kyle worked out in a half-assed kind of way, doing just enough to give himself the slender, subtle muscle tone that looks effortless. Good metabolism alone took care of the rest and stopped his lazy ass from mutating into a squishy giant of Cartman proportions. While Stan could happily spend hours powering around the gym, Kyle got tired easily and bored quickly. Once upon a time he would have mentally whipped himself into meeting Stan stride for stride and grunt for grunt, collapsing weak-kneed and gagging for breath only when Stan did the same and not a second before. But he didn't see the point now. More often than not he'd bail as soon as was acceptable, leaving Stan to continue to work on those extra muscle groups which most people didn't even know existed.

He'd never stopped obsessively comparing himself to his friends, particularly the super-best Mr. Marsh. It was just that somewhere along the line the comparisons had started falling more heavily in Kyle's favour.

Nobody had ever doubted that Stan would be hot. It came with the territory in high school. Sports teams, beautiful girlfriend, popular crowd, all equalled hot. And Stan was hot...but in an Abercrombie and Fitch seen-it-before kind of way. Stan might have been ripped, but that was because he worked damn hard at it. Kyle knew that he different stuff going for him that he did not have to work at. Abnormally green eyes and cheekbones like razor blades balanced cohesively around a sturdy Jewish nose gave his face an unusual 'look-again' quality which had long ago begun to make him stand out in his crowd of somewhat more conventionally handsome classmates.

It was totally fucking bizarre, the way Kyle's life had somehow just dropped into place. He'd opted for a comfortably respectable college, prestigious enough to be a CV asset, not prestigious enough that he'd have to break his balls to go there, collected his BA with barely a sweat broken and bagged the first training contract he'd chased. Yeah, he'd sold his soul and done the law thing. So what? The money was good and he had a fucking live-in tutor right there in the house for God's sake. Okay, so maybe he'd taken the safe option, and maybe he knew he had the smarts to make something more of himself if he wanted to. But he consoled himself with promises to one day ditch corporate and start picking up human rights or pro-bono or whatever. Kyle was totally fine with a couple of years of the bad stuff. His morals could probably do with coming down a peg or two anyway.

He'd always planned to leave South Park permanently as soon as he was done with college, but after he graduated, he couldn't decide where to go next and his friends had all hung around town. He'd gotten all caught up with them again. Before he knew it, Kyle had found himself sort of settled back at home while he was supposed to have been choosing which city to start a new life in. And now that he and the super-best were apartment-hunting, he would soon be tied up in work and housing contracts galore so a move didn't look to be on the cards at any time in the foreseeable future.

Life went like that.

The apartment hunting had reached a climax recently, with the introduction of a decent little two-bed place on the outskirts of the nice side of town. The apartment block squatted just shy of the seediest streets in South Park, but it was a new build, which meant new-build insulation and new-build laminate wipe-clean flooring. Besides, the semi-questionable location knocked a shitload off the asking price.

Kyle was prepared to fight tooth and nail for the place, even if that meant physically forcing Stan's hand to make the shapes of his signature (Kyle knew it well – it hadn't changed since Stan was thirteen) in the correct place on the contract.

A newly-wed couple, a somewhat more reliable bet for any landlord than a couple of young bachelors, and the boys' rivals for the apartment, were breathing down their necks and Kyle's desperation to seal the deal had led him to the last resort of imprisoning Stan in the Broflovski kitchen and refusing to release him until the contract had been discussed and signed. Oh, Stan thought he was a free to leave whenever he liked. But how wrong he was. How wrong.

The smell of coffee filled the kitchen. Kyle had only just learnt how to use the new maker. Kind of. It had a crazy-ass array of settings which were labelled with indecipherable symbols. Attempting to use it made Kyle feel like the world's biggest retard. It was not his favourite feeling.

"The fuck..." he muttered, scowling at the empty jug and complete lack of coffee dripping from the filter. He could smell the stuff brewing, so why the hell couldn't he _see_ it?

Stan sat at the table, one strong-knuckled hand clenched in his dark hair as he pored over the contract pages spread before him. As usual, no help would be forthcoming from the Marsh.

"Aw, man, screw this, dude." Kyle thrust the empty jug back into the machine in disgust. "Coffee's out. Forget it."

"Huh?" was Stan's delayed response as he flicked distracted blue eyes up and away from the papers.

"No coffee," Kyle repeated. He'd snatched up his empty mug, curled long fingers around it and carried it with him to the table out of habit before he realised that the bastard thing was empty and would afford him no comfort at all from the dusk chill beginning to creep into the edges of the room.

"Uh huh. Whatever, dude. What's this mean?" Stan asked. He pointed one bitten-down nail at a clause of the contract. Discarding the useless mug, Kyle reached for the paper and tugged it towards him.

"It's...er. Well, yeah. It's complicated."

Kyle bent one knee up, tucked his foot against the edge of the wooden chair and hugged his thigh to his chest in an attempt to better conserve his ebbing body heat.

"So explain it to me."

Kyle felt exasperation swell inside him. "Dude, it's cool. Just sign. I've checked it over, we're not getting ass-raped, it's all pretty standard."

Stan turned infuriatingly placid eyes towards him and for the about the fiftieth time that evening, Kyle fought the urge to tell Stan to suck it up and leave this shit to the people who didn't have to have it explained to them. Instead, he seized the chewed black bic from the other man's hand and scrawled his sloping signature aggressively across the waiting dotted line.

"Forget it, dude. There's no time. I'm living there, even if you're not," he snapped, way more harshly than he meant to. It wasn't that Kyle thought he was smarter than Stan. Not really. Stan just had a different kind of intelligence which was totally not applicable to shit like this.

When Kyle looked again, Stan was carefully tracing his own name on the line beneath Kyle's. The rush of guilt at slamming the super-best was instant. As usual, he hid it with sarcasm.

"So you trust me now?" he heard himself say pointedly.

"I didn't not trust you," Stan shrugged, "I just wanted to be up on what we're signing our lives away to."

"It's a year, Stan. That's not a life."

"It could be a life."

"If you're Kenny? Sure."

"I meant-"

"Touch wood we can both last longer than that." Kyle pressed a palm against the wooden tabletop. Just in case.

Stan seemed to dwell on this prophecy for a moment before rocking his chair back onto the two rear legs, stretching lean arms over his head and fixing Kyle with a Hollywood smile.

"Dude,"

"Yeah?"

"We got ourselves a house,"

Stan's grin was infectious. Kyle could feel its reflection straining at his own lips.

"Yeah, we do,"

"Cartman will be jealous as a bitch."

"Cartman can cry us a fucking river, dude."

The fatass had been not so secretly livid that Stan, Kyle and Kenny had all deliberately excluded him from their future living plans. He'd bitched and fumed and threatened and blackmailed and whined until ultimately defaulting to faking like he didn't give a shit. He constantly ripped on Stan and Kyle for being super-best friends even in their twenties. In Cartman's book, this made them faggy. Kenny was slammed as a whore for having slept his way into the bed and home of some dumbass woman twice his age who had more alimony than sense. Personally, Kyle saw that more as a triumph than a failure. She might have been old, but she had the plastic rack of an eighteen-year-old. Nothing wrong with a little gold-digging when all you'd ever known before were mattresses without bed-frames and hand-me down underwear. Cartman was bitter and twisted. He always had been.

Stan, Kyle and Kenny were used to the fatass's slander. They'd lived with it so long that life didn't feel quite normal without it now. They'd grown immune.

It still worked, the four of them. In a way. They rubbed along together in the snowy wasteland that was South Park same as they always had. There was no real reason for them to have remained friends. Other than maybe out of convenience or proximity. But it wasn't really all that convenient being friends with Cartman, for Christ's sake, and proximity? So what? They were still way too different to compose a logical friendship group.

Kyle secretly thought that was precisely why they were still friends. To spite people. They were friends because they could be and why the fuck not?

"It's not as if he couldn't afford to move out if he wanted to," Stan was saying now.

Kyle nodded. Cartman had bypassed college, opting instead to set up his own business selling home security systems – alarms, surveillance cameras, shit like that. It gave him plenty of opportunity to scaremonger people into giving him money. Cartman's venture had been disgustingly successful from the get-go and in true lardass style, he was now totally monopolising the South Park market and was in the process of raping every other business in town for all they were worth.

"He's a lazy sonuvabitch. Why strike out alone when he can stay at home and eat his Mom's pie?"

"I'd stay at home with his Mom if I could eat her pie all the time," Stan muttered carelessly.

Kyle arched one eyebrow in preparation for a pithy remark, but Stan was already way ahead of him.

"I mean that literally," he clarified, his eyes warning Kyle not to go there. "The woman makes good pie."

"Sure? You didn't mean-"

"Yes!" Stan yelped dramatically, "Aw, sick, dude. You fucking _had_ to give me that image, didn't you?"

"Hey, man, you gave it to yourself. Not my fault you're repressing subconscious desires to-"

Kyle broke off into laughter as Stan seized a fistful of the redhead's shirt and jerked him forwards.

"Stop grossing me out!" Stan's eye fell on the freshly-signed housing contract which he snatched and raised menacingly above Kyle's head. "Before I shove this down your throat and that happy couple have something to thank me for."

"No!" Kyle reached up and grasped the contract desperately. "No, don't joke with that, dude. It's precious. I'll behave." Stan willingly relinquished both the paper and Kyle's shirt at the same time, leaving Kyle to smooth the contract carefully against the table.

And so it went.

They celebrated the signing with plenty of beer, takeout and a low-budget horror movie. On Stan's way out the door, they shared a semi-drunk hug. Stan was pretty big on hugging. Kyle wasn't, but he always made exceptions when it came to the super-best. Besides, if there was ever an occasion that called for a bit of guy love, getting free of his mother's clutches was certainly it.

"It's gonna be so sweet, dude. So sweet," were Stan's beaming final words, before he turned and trudged away down the frozen path.

"Totally sweet," Kyle echoed to himself a moment later, as he bolted the door behind his friend. He retrieved the contract from the kitchen, filed it away safely and went to bed that night secure in the knowledge that all was right with the world.

Moving day came and went again, leaving more beer, manly hugging and a whole load of cardboard boxes and plastic bubble wrap in its wake. All through the move, Kyle's optimism never left him. And it stayed firm and glowing as he and Stan embarked on their carefree bachelor life together.

But two weeks in, he was finally ready to admit that the whole thing was not exactly going brilliantly.

* * *

A/N: Wow...I am really out of practice writing prose.

Okay, so I really don't know where this is going. It was originally at heart a Style (which I have developed a reluctant love of) but, having started the next chapter... it somehow seems to be writing itself into more of a K squared (edging ahead in my South Park OTP race). Both were planned to be involved from the get-go, since The Brat Prince has bewitched me with her warp speed updating and forced me into jumping on the K/K/S triangle bandwagon, but now...I'm not completely sure which pairing will win out in the end. Let's watch and see!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Okay, so I'm still getting into my stride with this. That means short chapters, a very slowly developing plot and slightly wobbly characterisation. And why this is angsty, I couldn't tell you. I'm all about the light-hearted stuff normally. Hm...

But let's have some Kenny! Yeah, boi.

* * *

Stan was a total slob. That was a big part of it.

It wasn't like Kyle hadn't known this about his friend before they had lived together. Shit, he had sometimes thought he spent more time in Stan's room than he did in his own when they were growing up. He knew all about the sock-strewn lamps and precarious piles of aging porn. Kyle knew it all. He had always written it off as something that happened at Stan's and had no larger bearing on his own life. It was irrelevant.

What Kyle had _not_ known was how melodramatically he would react to the slow spread of Stan's mess beyond the confines of his room and the imminent threat that it would soon engulf the entire apartment, _Kyle's _apartment, which the two of them wouldn't even have if not for him. He was sick of dragging himself out of bed in the morning only to nearly break his neck tripping on various pieces of football paraphernalia, of making his coffee in a pint glass and stirring it with a fork because everything else in the kitchen was dirty, sick of having to remove tubs of hair gel and cans of shaving cream from the sink before he could spit out his toothpaste.

They had regular bickery arguments about the mess, which never got them anywhere. Stan thought Kyle was uptight and overreacting, which was potentially true but, for real? Dirty cereal bowls left in the shower? Stan totally had to be kidding. Nobody was that messy by accident.

Another source of woe were the hookers who hung out on the street corner outside Kyle's bedroom window until five in the morning and solicited Stan and Kyle relentlessly whenever they returned home after dark. The awesome price of the place was finally starting to make sense. They made Kyle feel skanky and violated by association. While Stan kind of agreed on that point, he slept like a goddamn log and was never kept awake by the giggling and catcalls. Stan would have slept through the fucking building burning down. He didn't understand Kyle's pain. Besides, Stan had just started working nights again, which meant he was rarely in the apartment when the girls were prowling outside.

Stan's night shifts also meant that the two friends practically never saw each other, despite living together in the same four rooms. The only time they did see one another, one of them was always a grumpy mess after a gruelling day of work, while the other was in a blind panic, desperate to get out the door on time. The situation didn't make for a whole lot of bonding time and meant that arguments basically never got resolved and were left to hang around in the air instead, festering quietly.

And then there was Kenny. Or, in fact, _mostly_, there was Kenny.

Exactly five days after the move (Kyle totally unpacked, Stan still in boxes. Wireless up and functional. Curtains? Not so much), Kenny had turned up at the apartment door with a duffel bag full of hastily-gathered belongings and the pitiful look of a stray mutt in his eyes. Kyle had been at work at the time. Maybe if he had been home, things would have worked out differently. But Kyle had been out and there was totally something about Stan and stray dogs.

When Kyle returned to the apartment that night, it was to find his couch turned into a bed and various items of Kenny's snow-drenched clothing hanging to dry over the dining chairs. Trepidation rose in Kyle's throat like vomit.

"What the..." he muttered under his breath as he set his briefcase down by the door.

"Hey, buddy!" a bright voice added fuel to the fire of his fears. Kyle turned to see Kenny padding towards him on bare, silent feet, dressed head-to-toe in Stan's clothes and with a warm, shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

"Hey," Kyle returned, trying to make it sound genuinely welcoming.

Kenny reached out one hand and laid it casually at the side of Kyle's face by way of greeting, flashing that smile even wider as he did so. Kenny had a habit of touching people like he owned them.

"Whassup, dude?" Kyle asked uncertainly. He felt Kenny's hand fall away from his face to rest more comfortably atop his shoulder.

"Aw, man, Kyle..." Kenny shook his head. "Got kicked out, didn't I?"

"You-"

"Fucking _sucks_, dude," Kenny said with a gleam in his eyes. Kyle couldn't help registering that he didn't look all that put out.

"What happened? She kicked you out? Seriously?"

"Yeah," Kenny lowered his gaze sheepishly in the direction of Kyle's feet.

"What did you do, Kenny?"

"Huh?" Blue eyes flicked instantly back up at Kyle, widening with predictable innocence.

"To get kicked out. What did you do?"

Faced with Kyle's knowing look, Kenny didn't keep up his act for long. A slow, lopsided smile tugged at the blonde's lips.

"Sorta...Kinda...fucked the daughter."

"Argh, Kenny..." Kyle shrugged Kenny's hand from his shoulder and stepped around him, heading for the kitchen. Kenny was hot on his heels and up in arms straight away.

"Hey, _she _came on to _me, _man! I was practically assaulted, you know?"

"Bullshit you were."

Kenny ran his tongue over his teeth absently, watching as Kyle tugged the tie loose at his throat. "Yeah. Well..."

"See and now you're out on your ass. Dude, what the hell did you do that for?"

"I'm not out on my ass. I have you guys."

Kyle ignored this remark pointedly and turned his back on Kenny under the pretence of getting a drink. He gingerly plucked the only clean glass from the draining board, which he proceeded to fill with water.

Now that they were older, something about Kenny had increasingly started to piss Kyle off. And not in the petty way that Stan pissed him off with his stupid habits like the nail-biting and the mess and his tendency to cry like a baby when drunk. No, Kenny had begun to unnerve Kyle in a very deep and profound way. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was. Kenny was his friend, had been for years. But there was...something. The whole cyclical death and resurrection thing still had the power to shake Kyle to his very core no matter how many times he witnessed it. And sometimes when he looked at Kenny, all he could see were scenes of the blonde's most spectacular deaths being re-enacted over and over; scenes which were still burned into the back of Kyle's mind.

But that whole creepy matter aside, there were other things about Kenny which made the hair on the back of Kyle's neck stand up. The blonde had a way of guessing stuff a little too accurately, of always knowing a bit more than he should by rights know. Kyle got the impression that Kenny could read him like an open book and he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. Add to that the fact that Kenny practically personified all the things that Kyle had always tried to repress most in himself and it left them with a bizarrely hollow half-friendship which was mostly kept alive by their mutual connection to Stan.

Observing the tense lines of Kyle's body, Kenny pushed one hand through his dirty blonde hair and once more dropped the pretence.

"Jesus. I don't know, man. I don't know why I did it. Boredom? I mean she was hot, but...I don't know. Maybe I'm just going through a hedonistic phase right now. So what?"

"Hedonistic?"

"Yeah. It means, like, the pursuit of pleasure-"

"I know what it means," Kyle snapped, inwardly marvelling that Kenny knew too, while at the same time thinking that a word like that would have thrown Stan for a loop. Kenny was just about the least academic person Kyle knew. But he had a shrewd, raw intelligence which put Stan to shame and more street smarts than his other three friends combined. Which was, Kyle felt, just another thing to distrust about him.

Damn, if Kenny thought his residence here was going to be a permanent thing, he was sadly mistaken, Kyle thought.

He leant back against the kitchen counter, intent on telling Kenny exactly that, and immediately wished he hadn't as he felt something damp seep into the fabric of his shirt. He turned quickly to see a spilt puddle of orange juice which had already oozed down the cabinet and onto the floor.

"Ugh, dude! Stan, what the hell?!" he growled, slamming his glass down in order to retrieve a cloth from the sink. "Kenny, why the fuck would you want to live here? Can you not see the place? It's fucking disgusting, man." He whirled away from the counter and found Kenny standing in front of him, cloth already in hand.

"I've seen worse," Kenny said, nudging Kyle aside and wiping at the mess on the counter. Kyle was about to protest that it wasn't a guest's responsibility to clean their hosts' counters, when the king of mess himself blew into the kitchen and distracted him.

"Hey, Kyle," Stan greeted dismissively, collecting his I.D. badge from the top of the refrigerator. "Ken, do you need anything else before I head out?"

"Er..." Kenny turned, cloth dripping.

"Kyle'll hook you up if you need anything. Right, dude?" Stan turned to his roommate, slinging the badge around his neck.

"Stan did you spill orange juice?" Kyle couldn't help it. He swore he couldn't. He was turning into his mother.

"What? I dunno. Dude, I'm gonna be late. I'll catch you guys later, yeah?"

"Stan-"

"Later, Kyle!" Stan called over his shoulder on the way out. The front door closed behind him and Kyle mentally chalked up another mark on the mounting tally of friendship wrongs which he found himself unable to stop keeping.

"Shit," Kenny said behind him and Kyle turned to find his friend staring at him, all-knowing as ever. "Where did the love go, man?"

Kyle sighed, shaking his head wearily. "Don't. Don't even."

Kenny tossed the orange-stained cloth in the direction of the sink and fixed Kyle with his clear, blue gaze.

"Has Stan lost the super?" he asked. Kyle winced at the perceptiveness of the remark.

"Stan has totally nearly lost the super, yeah."

"Weak, dude."

"I know."

"You wanna talk about it?"

Kyle looked at Kenny and saw nothing but open and innocent friendship in his face. Perhaps the thing that unnerved Kyle the most about Kenny was the fact that somehow he knew that all the tension and uncertainty between them was completely one-sided. Kyle could sense that Kenny was totally sure of him and that only made the fact that Kyle was not at all sure of Kenny even harder to stomach.

Kyle didn't answer Kenny's question.

"You want pizza?" he asked instead. The blonde conceded immediately, graciously allowing Kyle to bail.

"Sure," he said, with an easy smile. He pulled a folded note from the back pocket of Stan's jeans and tossed it onto the counter beside Kyle. "It's on me. Well. On our friend the Marsh, anyway. But he owes you, right?"

"Yeah, man. He owes me his fucking balls..." Kyle muttered.

"You got any beer?"

Kyle nodded and picked up the phone from its cradle on the kitchen wall, while Kenny raided the fridge for beer bottles. Kenny cracked open the bottles while Kyle was placing the order. A moment later, he pushed one cold, damp bottle into Kyle's hand with a wink and a cocksure smile before hooking the hood of Stan's college sweater up over his blonde hair and striding away into the living room as if he had lived here all his life.

Kyle watched him go, an alien form clad in Stan's familiar college blue. And above the static crackle of the pizza delivery phone line, the long-ago-studied words, "Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look," pulsed heavy in Kyle's mind.

* * *

A/N: Plot will come. I swear. Plot will come. Right now though, I am so tired that I could literally, physically die...


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I totally can't stop it. I'm panic writing this story in the fear that the inspiration might suddenly dry up before I've had time to get it all down!

So, this chapter abandons Kyle and Kenny a little in favour of Stan. I wanted him to have more of a voice because I don't want him to only be seen in Kyle's light, if you get what I mean. I think Stan deserves more than that. Cartman also muscled his way in, but I can't quite get the hang of his potty mouth. I tried creating new compound swear words but just ended up grossing myself out so had to delete them and tone it down. Was too embarassed that my mind could produce that kind of filth!

Oh! Last thing. Stan's job. Um...I don't know why. It just clicked into place and is now gospel to me. It can't be changed. My writing kind of takes charge of itself like that. (Wait til you find out the job that Kenny's picked for himself...)

* * *

Living with Kyle was like going away to college all over again: lonely, alien and disorientating. He knew it made no sense. But Stan swore to God that was exactly how he felt every morning when he woke up to a bare magnolia wall inches from his nose and a cold expanse of mattress empty at his back. The new apartment had the same feel of being severed from reality that his college dorm room had had. It was all so impersonal. The place didn't feel like home. Worse, it felt like the anti-home. There were traces of home, sure. A favourite coffee mug, the same old shirt he'd been wearing for years. But these were fragments of a life left behind. The familiar photographs stuck crookedly to the frame of his mirror seemed the marks of a desperate man who was grasping at straws.

So, Stan got messier in an attempt to spread himself over the entire living space, to somehow make it his own and stop it from pushing him out. It didn't work. Each friendly artefact only served to make the place seem even more aloof by comparison.

It wasn't just pieces of Stan's life which were strewn across the blank, ill-fitting apartment, either. Kyle was everywhere. Their stuff had gotten merged and jumbled up, crammed together in drawers and on shelves. There was Kyle's organic sugar-free peanut butter in the cupboard, Kyle's shampoo in the bathroom. Stan regularly mistook the shampoo for his own and then spent frustrated days engulfed by the smell of the friend who had lately come to seem so absent from him.

He didn't understand how it had happened. Far from bringing them closer, the move had left Stan feeling as if whole states once again sat between he and his lifelong, till we die, super-best friend. They practically never saw each other. And whenever they did cross paths, Kyle was always angry. Stan couldn't handle that these days. It was too much effort to go head to head with Sheila Broflovski's son. Deny it all he liked, Kyle really fucking was his mother's son. Cartman was totally right, the woman was a bitch. And Kyle could be one too.

The night shifts didn't help any. They were totally screwing up Stan's mind. He was so tired. Always. More tired than he had known it was physically possible to be and still keep living.

Back in high school, Stan had spent days, weeks, months agonising over his choice of career. Wendy had helped him to make lists of the things he'd wanted, his hopes and dreams, his personality traits. She'd cross-referenced them all and stuck heart-shaped post-its into brochures she'd collected from the careers guidance fair. She'd told him it was the most important decision of his life and in her round, assertive handwriting she'd printed list after list, drawing stars and squiggles to indicate the qualities which were most important to him: help people, something worthwhile, job security.

Much to the surprise of everyone except Wendy, when the time came to make the final choice, Stan had opted to train as a nurse. He worked now in the ER at Hell's Pass. Cartman had called it the pussy option, but Stan had never done anything more emotionally and physically demanding in his entire life.

Sometimes he stumbled out of the hospital at the end of a shift feeling barely human, with his head nothing but an empty shell. On those mornings, his aching limbs took on a life of their own and navigated the icy roads home without Stan even being aware of it happening. He often found himself standing on the sidewalk outside the apartment building, car keys in hand, not knowing quite how he had gotten there. And, as the rising sun gleamed between the bare branches of the trees, he would drag himself inside and try to avoid participation in another petty argument with Kyle, before crash-landing onto his bed and sleeping until dusk.

It was no way to live.

When Cartman had called earlier that evening and not so much suggested as demanded that Stan meet him for a drink before his shift started, Stan had agreed, partly because he couldn't think of an excuse, but partly because time spent around the fatass helped Stan to feel more sane himself. It also meant he was able to leave the house early and thus postpone the inevitable fight with Kyle about Kenny's indefinite presence in the house, a fight which Stan expected to bitter and messy. Kyle could be kind of...weird about certain people and Kenny was definitely one of those people. Stan would have put money on Kyle's not wanting their mutual friend to stay long, but there was no way Stan was going to make Kenny leave if the guy had nowhere else to go. He knew he'd have no option but to put his foot down.

When choosing between a fight with his super-best who argued with people _for a living_, and drinks with Cartman, the fat neo-nazi won hands down. They sat side by side in a dim bar a block away from the hospital, where Cartman was predictably offended by Stan's order of Diet Coke.

"What the fuck?" he squawked, staring at Stan in outrage. Stan sipped his Coke defiantly, resistant by now to all of Cartman's bluster.

"I can't drink, dude. I have to start work in an hour," he said with an air of finality. He didn't comment on the Diet. His mother and sister had always stocked the house with it when he was growing up and now Kyle continued the tradition. Stan was used to Diet. Regular Coke tasted like shit to him.

Cartman gave a snort of disgust.

"Faggot," he muttered. Stan shrugged in response, indifferent. Cartman eyed him appraisingly, watching as his friend sullenly stared down into the dark liquid fizzing around its ice cubes.

"What's wrong? The Jew-bitch pissing you off?" he asked.

Fatally, Stan hesitated. Cartman leapt upon the pause like a tiger.

"I can see it in your eyes," Cartman crowed, "He's Jewed all over you and now you're this close to ending it." He held one chubby finger and thumb a small distance apart and shoved them so close to Stan's face that Stan had to lean back to avoid getting a knuckle thrust into his eye.

Any opportunity to rip on Kyle, Stan thought. Cartman couldn't resist it. Stan was so sick of having to defend his super-best to this asshole.

"No, dude," he protested wearily, "It's not like that." Even though, really, it kind of was.

"Goddammit! I _knew _this would happen! I _told_ you! 'Don't fucking live with the Jew!' I said. 'He'll suck all your life away and leave you an empty shell of a man! And steal your money.' Didn't I tell you that, Stan? _Didn't I_?"

"Yeah. You told me,"

"Jesus Christ," Cartman muttered, "And now it has come to pass..."

"No. It hasn't. For real, Cartman. I'm telling you. It's not like that."

"Oh, Stan. Stanley, Stanley, Stanley." Cartman slung one heavy arm across Stan's shoulders. "It _is_ like that. But he has bewitched you with his Jew magic so that you are unable to see the truth."

Stan sighed. He'd left home early because he had no strength to argue and he wanted to get _away_ from Kyle for a little while. He really should have known better than to agree to meet Cartman. Cartman was all about the Kyle. He always had been. Stan secretly believed that the fatass was a little bit gay for his super-best. The level of hatred that Cartman bestowed on Kyle was just too intense not to be suspect. Nobody hated someone that much and yet still insisted on spending as much time around them as possible. The thought of it made Stan want to puke.

"Let me give you a deal on a security system," Cartman said abruptly, clapping Stan on the shoulder in a brisk, business-like manner. He pulled a glossy leaflet from the inside pocket of his jacket and spread it on the bar in front of them. Stan blinked at it, confused.

"What?"

"Security! You have a Jew in the house. You can't risk not having protection."

"Jesus, dude..." Stan pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut in exasperation.

"Now, the least you'd want to install would be the Heavy Resistance Door Locks, that's TM, Stan, for eight ninety-five," Cartman clicked the end of a sleek gold pen and began scribbling numbers onto a cocktail napkin. "And really you'd need the Infrared Intruder Alarm, also TM, okay? That's fourty-nine ninety-five. Then maybe throw in a mini Sneak Detector Camera, TM, right...there...and that takes us to...carry the...ninety-one dollars and ninety cents."

Cartman slid the napkin towards Stan, circled the total in one delicate stroke of the pen and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Now you're a friend, Stan. So just for you, I'll let you have all of that for ninety dollars. And that's really breaking my balls."

Stan stared back, non-plussed, cheek propped up on one fist.

"What do you say?" Cartman prompted.

"Cartman. For the last time, I don't need protection against Kyle," Stan told the other man firmly. They continued to stare each other down for a moment before Cartman shook his head sadly and turned back to his beer.

"You're a fucking douche, man. You deserve to get Jew-raped."

Stan took a contemplative sip of his Diet Coke and ignored Cartman's bigotry, same as always.

"How's work?" he asked, opting for the safety of Cartman's favourite non-Jewish topic of conversation

"Yeah. Work's kewl," Cartman said, lacing his plump fingers together and cracking his knuckles contentedly, "We've been looking into expanding. To Denver. Been looking at some places round Denver. Need a bigger market now and Denver's where the fresh money'll be."

"Nice."

"Yeah. I've been looking at buying out there..."

"What? A house?"

"Yeah...you know. So, to be, like, nearer for work 'nd stuff..."

Cartman was avoiding looking at him now, and had a familiar evasive tilt to his chin. Stan smelled a rat.

"Really? What about the stores here?" he asked suspiciously.

"I've gotta move with the times, Stan. I guess you wouldn't know anything about that seeing as you do a pussy woman's job, but that's how the real world works. Ask your Jew. He'll explain it to you." Cartman took a large gulp of his beer, obviously to have something distracting to do with his hands. "Yep. It's about time to get out of this shit-hole town, anyway. Sometimes a guy just needs to move on."

"Are you in trouble, dude?"

Cartman looked at Stan sharply.

"What?" he barked.

"Are you in trouble?" Stan repeated patiently, "Because, if you are, you know, we'll help you out man. We're-

"What the fuck? Are you on crack? The business is doing great. Did you not just hear me say that? We're gonna expand to Denver, goddamnit."

"Okay, fine. But you hate Denver. You called it a stinking melting pot of..."

"Hoes and queermos," Cartman supplied promptly.

"Right. So why would you move there?"

Cartman glared at him and for a moment Stan thought that this conversation might have to do another lap. Then Cartman's shoulders sagged in defeat.

"Alright," he said gruffly, "If you must know, I've sorta been...you know. Seeing someone lately. She lives in Denver."

"Seeing someone?" Stan asked blankly.

"Yeah."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean I've been seeing a girlfriend in Denver, you fucking retard."

Stan choked on his Coke.

No freaking way, Stan's mind screamed. A girlfriend? Not the Cartman Stan knew. The Cartman Stan knew did not _do_ relationships. The Cartman Stan knew beat off in secret to thoughts of Stan's super-best, manipulated the occasional drunk woman into letting him fuck her, and slept every night spooning his stupid security business accounts book. Cartman certainly did not have _girlfriends. _Jesus. Whoever she was, the woman had to be fucking insane.

Cartman thumped Stan soundly on the back with the heel of one sturdy hand.

"See that's what you get for drinking that diet pussy shit," he said, watching Stan swallow repeatedly and gasp for air.

"A...A girlfriend?" Stan managed to get out between coughs.

"Yeah. S'what I said."

"But...but...you? _You_ have a girlfriend?" It had slipped from Stan's mouth before he could stop it. Cartman's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Ey! What the fuck do you mean 'you', you Jew-loving little hippy?!" he spat.

Stan held one hand up defensively, using the back of the other to wipe the last traces of Coke from around his mouth.

"Just because you puke up like a fag every time a woman comes within ten feet of you does not mean that the rest of us are as sexually retarded as you, dickwad."

"Alright, Cartman. Jesus. I'm sorry, okay?"

"Yeah. I'll make you fucking sorry," Cartman muttered. Stan didn't doubt it. That was why he swallowed down the urge to point out that he hadn't puked on a girl since fifth grade. Apart from that one time in tenth, but really, that had been more down to the alcohol than anything else.

"It was just kind of a shock, dude. What's she like?" he offered as an olive branch, instead. Cartman took it grudgingly.

"Fucking sweet, dude," was his inarticulate reply. But it was accompanied with a barely concealed smile which spoke volumes.

The image of that smile danced mockingly around Stan's head as he fished his car keys out of his pocket later, outside in the parking lot. Cartman had a girlfriend. _Cartman_. The fucking fatass had met someone while Stan himself was still miserably single. What the hell kind of a God was up there getting off on that shit?

Stan's luck with relationships was notoriously bad, which kind of sucked, because out of the four of them, Stan was the only one who was really a relationship person. Kyle was generally indifferent to the idea, preferring to keep his encounters short and discreet. Kenny's tended to be just as short but a whole lot less discreet. And Cartman? Cartman had always loved money and power and himself too much for there to be room in his heart for anything else. Until now, apparently. Stan, on the other hand, liked real relationships. He felt that they gave his life more of a purpose, so when one came along, he would throw himself into it body and soul. Which, to be honest, was where it tended to fuck up.

He'd dated Wendy through most of high school, but she'd dumped him, the Christmas of tenth grade, with a bullshit 'it's not you, it's me' line. Stan had spent three consecutive nights that week sobbing in a drunken, pathetic heap in the middle of Kyle's bedroom floor. He remembered those nights in patches. The scratchy blue carpet fibre hard beneath his cheek. The damp sting of tears. The acrid aftertaste of whiskey and puke. He remembered the cutting insults, being told to suck it up, to stop pussing out all over the floor. But, he also remembered the tone of Kyle's voice not quite matching the words it spoke. He remembered the gentle yet insistent pressure of Kyle's arm around his shoulders and the low, sympathetic hisses of Kyle's breath against his neck. Stan's super-best had single-handedly dragged him out of the black hole that Wendy had sucked him into. Two weeks later when Stan returned to school after winter break, washed, pressed and none the worse for wear, he knew who he had to thank for it.

It had happened again in his final year of college – a girl called Katie, who Stan had sworn was the one. He'd ended up drunk and crying on the floor that time, too. He'd called Kyle on his cell, and then lain on the floor, listening to the sound of Kyle's voice as tears dried sticky on his cheeks.

Kyle had never done anything like that. At least, not on Stan's watch he hadn't. The redhead had his fair share of dramatics, sure, and fucking explosive they were when they happened. But, Kyle tended to just get angry and rampage passionately until he burned himself out. Stan took the world hard, but Kyle didn't take anything. He fought back instead.

Which was fine, Stan thought - as images of all the objects in the apartment which could easily be wielded to effect Kenny's convenient death flashed through his mind - providing you weren't the one he was fighting.

* * *

A/N: Expect more. Much more. I am currently like a woman possessed.

I was actually late for work this morning because I was writing a fun Kyle/Kenny scene which will come a few chapters on. That's how bad my involvement with this story is starting to get. Hell to the yeah.

(P.S. Admin question...is my rating correct for this? I'm thinking maybe the level of swearing is a bit much to not rate it more highly. I'm a little indifferent to standard swearwords. I work with teenagers so have developped selective deafness, but I know other people are more easily offended by it and...yeah...)


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I struggled with this chapter a little. It's really just...not filler, exactly, but more of a plot blocker to help the pace. I'm not quite ready for all the shit to hit the fan right away. But never fear. It's all going to kick off in a big way over the next couple of chapters.

* * *

Incredibly, it was four full days before the fight about Kenny actually occurred. And to Stan's amazement, when it did happen it wasn't so much a fight as it was merely a vague exchange between apparently indifferent parties.

Stan had the night off and when he'd stumbled out of his room that evening, still half-drunk on sleep, he had quite literally collided with Kyle in the hallway. The redhead was fresh from the shower: warm, damp and wearing nothing but a towel tucked easy around his hips.

"Dude!" Kyle exclaimed, forehead wrinkling in annoyance as he shoved Stan's dead weight away from him. Stan stumbled awkwardly sideways and pressed one palm against the wall to steady himself. His limbs felt like lead.

"What are you doing here?" he rasped out, voice still thick and heavy. It was four in the afternoon, earlier than Stan usually woke. At this hour Kyle was usually still chained submissively to a desk, at the complete mercy of his boss, not prowling semi-naked around the apartment. Stan blinked hard in an attempt to clear the bleariness from his vision and found Kyle staring at him in mild disbelief.

"It's Saturday, retard."

"What? Saturday? For real?"

"Yeah, man. Get a grip," had been Kyle's waspish response before he pushed steam-softened curls out of his eyelashes and sauntered past in the direction of his room.

Stan stood in the hall, reeling a little. He had long ago lost track of the days of the week. But now it seemed that for the first time in forever, he and Kyle would both be fully conscious together in the apartment for longer than the time it took Stan to dress and brush his teeth. That meant that the Kenny discussion would undoubtedly be forced out of them today. It was just a matter of when and how.

An hour later, they were standing side-by-side in the kitchen, Kyle stirring diced onion in a pan on the stove, Stan watching the toaster intently while he waited for his toast to reach just the right level of burnt.

"So," Kyle said, deliberately casual, "Is Kenny, like, staying, or what?"

There it was. No warning. Stan let the question rest in the air for a moment, glancing sideways at his friend while he tried to gauge Kyle's mood and the direction this might be heading. "Well. I dunno," he began cautiously, "Does he have anywhere else to go?"

"No," Kyle replied with the speed of factual knowledge.

"Then..." Stan shrugged. "You know?"

Kyle nodded, poker-faced, his empty eyes fixed on the hissing onions. Kyle was damn good at making himself unreadable these days, Stan thought. He didn't like the idea that he might have simply grown worse at reading his friend and preferred the thought that Kyle worked harder at hiding things now, purely out of habit. It came with the job. Playing your cards close to your chest was a necessity in a field of work where showing emotion would get you eaten alive. It wasn't like Stan's job where having a heart actually meant something.

Still, though. No reaction was better than Kyle screaming, spitting and throwing Kenny's belongings out of the window for the hookers which, if Stan was honest, was kind of what he had been expecting.

"How did you sleep, dude?" Kyle surprised Stan further by asking.

"Er...yeah. Fine, thanks," Stan said distractedly. His toast had just popped out of the toaster and was the colour of charcoal. Definitely too far. "Shit," he swore, tossing the ruined bread across the kitchen with sure athletic prowess. It dropped neatly through the swinging flap of the trashcan and Stan couldn't help but feel a warm glow of pride. Kyle followed the toast's flight with his eyes and arched one eyebrow, grudgingly impressed.

"You seemed completely out of it last night," he said, declining to comment on Stan's jockish display. "You like, totally blanked me when I asked how your shift was."

"Did I?"

"Yeah."

"Christ. Sorry, dude. I don't even remember that. It was kind of a rough night last night." Stan pulled fresh slices of bread out of a packet on the counter. Between a fucking horrible car wreck and being way short-staffed, the last shift had not been an easy ride. He slotted his bread into the toaster, turned down the toasting power, and then turned in time to see Kyle emptying an entire pack of ground beef onto the onions.

"Woah! Dude. You gonna eat all that?" His super-best had a notoriously small appetite for a guy and a horrible habit of wasting food. Kyle shook his head.

"I'm making enough for Kenny. Why? You want some?" Stan stared at the ground beef and wrinkled his nose.

"No way, man. This is breakfast time for me."

"Oh. Yeah, ground beef is so not breakfast."

"I know, right?"

"Dude," Kyle smirked, stabbing at the beef with his wooden spoon to break it up, "you know who _would_ eat beef for breakfast?"

"Who?"

"You can guess, Stan. You're not that vapid. It starts with a 'fat' and ends in an 'ass'."

Stan snorted with laughter, while at the same time some part of his brain was quietly marvelling at the fact that they appeared to have made it out of the Kenny argument scot free.

"He starts _and_ ends in 'fat', dude," he said.

"Totally. And 'ass'."

They exchanged grins, back in familiar super-best territory for the first time in days. The moment was broken by Stan's toast popping out of the toaster again, this time still bone white.

"Jesus Christ, this thing is a pile of crap!" he exclaimed, shoving the lever back down roughly. Kyle glanced over.

"Oh, yeah, I know. We need to get a new one. Stan, dude, don't bang it like that, though. It'll probably blow up in your face. Or you'll prime it to blow up in Kenny's face next time he's in here. One of the two."

The conversation was over. They'd done it and it had been suspiciously painless. Stan knew that bringing it up again was potentially super-best suicide, but he couldn't stop himself. He didn't want to just let the matter lie and then have it come back to bite him in the ass later.

"Kyle?"

"What?"

"Are you sure you're cool with Kenny staying here for a while?" Stan asked, before he could change his mind. He watched closely this time for fleeting signs of the instant gut reaction that even Kyle would be unable to hide. Kyle shrugged loosely.

"Sure," he said, "why wouldn't I be?"

He met Stan's gaze head on, face open and inscrutable. If there were signs of a hidden agenda, Stan caught none of them.

"No reason. Just...you know. I got the impression you didn't get on so great with him since college..." Stan muttered vaguely, suddenly wishing he had left the matter alone. He turned quickly away to attend to his toast in the hope of avoiding any backlash.

"I don't not get on with him," Kyle said, "He's my friend, dude."

Hopes were for fools, Stan thought.

"I know, but..." he started.

It was then that Kyle interrupted with something which made Stan look at him twice.

"I think Kenny just sees the world differently," he murmured, quietly.

Perhaps it was the way Kyle said it, as if it were some profound revelation. But, those words were Stan's first indication that there had been a subtle change in the apartment's atmosphere. And, over the next day and a half, before his shifts started again, Stan came to realise that the change was down to something new which had settled into place between his two friends. It was indistinct, barely decipherable, but it was there.

* * * * * * *

They'd stumbled across the bar the first night that Kenny had stayed at the apartment. There had only been three bottles left in the fridge and so, when the pizza was gone and they had both realised that a beer and a half was not enough to get them through a night together without Stan, they'd taken recklessly to the streets in search of something stronger, more plentiful and within walking distance.

"Seriously, dude," Kyle said, tugging the collar of his coat up to guard against the cold, "We should head for the other side of town. It's only a block the other way and we'll be somewhere decent. It's not smart to walk this way after dark. Even the realtor told us so." Kenny slanted his gaze sideways at Kyle and smirked wolfishly.

"What's the issue?" he asked, "This is your hood now, bro. Don't disrespect that."

"I'm not. I love the hood. I just don't think it loves me back," Kyle protested under his breath, eyes darting around uneasily.

But, Kenny was fearless. When you had nothing in your pockets worth stealing, a spiteful right hook - taught to you by a brother whose bar-brawling skills had won him a two-year sentence - and an exceptionally good working relationship with death, there wasn't a whole lot left for you to fear. Crime and deprivation meant nothing to Kenny. He was at home around them. Kyle, on the other hand, was a stranger to both. It would have been cruel of Kenny to ignore that. So, he cranked up the warmth in his smile and dropped one lithe arm across Kyle's tense shoulders.

"Don't worry, man," he said, "I'll protect you from the whores and the rapists."

Kyle had put him firmly in his place with a withering stare, but true to his word Kenny fended off the hookers' customary solicitations by soliciting them right back, and hard. It was surprisingly effective.

"How did you do that?" Kyle whispered, as the garishly made-up women parted before them like the red sea. Kenny shrugged.

"They're just people, dude. Hey. Look," Kenny lifted one arm, clad only in the thin blue fabric of Stan's hoodie, to point at a hazy, neon sign, barely visible through the freezing fog. Kyle squinted ahead, trying and failing to make out the letters.

"I think I see me a bar," Kenny grinned, "Come on." He shoved his hands into his pockets and strode forwards confidently. Kyle had no choice but to follow.

The place was a dive. Dim red lighting barely illuminated the mismatched furniture and the floor was sticky underfoot. The only other patrons were two shadowy figures who sat with their heads bent close, voices lowered ominously. A grim-faced barman glared stoically at them. His hands hung out of sight behind the bar, probably to hide whatever weapon he was holding, Kyle reflected.

"Place seems alright, huh?" Kenny chirped, turning to Kyle with eyebrows raised optimistically.

"Alright? Dude, look at it. It's a shit-hole," Kyle replied in a low voice as he eyed the barman warily.

"Yeah?" Kenny muttered, "Well don't say that loud in here or you'll probably get shanked in the guts." And, with that warning, he strolled up to the bar and ordered whiskey for both of them.

They chose the best-lit table in the place and sat there together, sipping the cheap liquor and searching for a topic of conversation.

"So. You still making your daddy proud?" Kenny settled on asking.

"I guess so," Kyle shrugged, "Why? Are you?"

Of all the McCormick offspring, Kenny was the only one to have a steady job and no criminal record. He knew that he made his parents proud every day. He was already the favourite. If he could only engineer some kind of stable relationship and a couple of grandkids, they would probably forget his siblings' names all together.

"Yeah," he said, "Reckon so."

"Great." Kyle paused to sip his whiskey, and then asked pointedly, "Does that mean they know about the hedonistic shit?" Kenny offered a wry smile.

"Please. They live their lives according to 'the hedonistic shit'. It's what poor people do."

"That's such-"

"Look, Kyle. It's not 'such' anything. Alright? I've just, you know, worked out that life is fucking short. Too short, right? And so...why not make the most of the time I have? I got a helluva lot of bullcrap in my life, okay? You know I do. But I'm not complaining about it, because what would be the point of that?"

Kyle said nothing. He was very aware of how much tougher Kenny's life had been than his own. It was another item on his list of things about Kenny which made him uncomfortable, along with the fact that the blonde was such a goddamn martyr about it all. Kenny was right. He never complained.

"So instead of wallowing in it, I'm just...taking life by the balls and not letting it get the better of me." Kenny's grin gleamed in the dim light. "Via a totally proactive response that just happens to be a lot of fun."

"Yeah. And now you have no girlfriend and no home."

"Right. But it was fucking worth it, dude, I'm telling you. That shit doesn't matter. It's not coming with you in the end."

Kenny took a long, slow drink of his whiskey, watching the change in Kyle's eyes as he moved from sceptical mockery to grudging respect. Kenny wasn't going to let that go without capitalising on it.

"You should try it, man," he said, "It's awesome. I promise."

"What? Move in with some bitch then royally fuck her over by screwing her daughter?"

"No. You could...I don't know. Leave your job and join the circus? You've got the hair for it, dude."

"Fuck you."

"Or, hey. You could always hook up with the super-best."

"Kenny!" Kyle squeezed those pretty green eyes shut and dragged the heel of one hand across his temple in frustration.

"What? He's a total fag for you anyway. You know that, right?"

"Ugh, dude! You joke, but I still have to live with the guy. Okay?"

"So?"

"So, don't make things weird. Weirder. You know?"

"It's not weird if it's not true, though."

"It doesn't- Whatever. Change the subject. Now. Or I'm out," Kyle nodded towards the door then picked up his tumbler and drained the last of his whiskey, to show he was serious. Kenny noted the ease with which Kyle swallowed down the stiff liquor, watched the tempting movements of Kyle's mouth as he sucked the last drops from his bottom lip. Yeah, Kenny was prepared to call that bluff. He chuckled, leaning forwards on folded arms.

"You sure about that, dude?" he taunted, "Out there all by yourself? Without me? You wouldn't make it."

"I'll take my chances," Kyle enunciated carefully, eyes fixed unwaveringly on Kenny's.

In the end Kyle won, but only because Kenny let him.

After that, they had fallen into kind of a pattern. Kyle would get caught up at the office and make it home to Kenny just as Stan was leaving for work. They'd eat together, while watching shit TV, and then make their way through the bitter night air to the bar on the corner where they would have long meandering conversations. The barman got to know their faces well enough to give them the occasional chaser on the house and by the end of the week, they were on first name terms with the hookers on the corner – Krystal, Katarina, Stacey and Collette – whose names miraculously corresponded to those of the members of their own little foursome. The jokes about that never got old.

When Stan's days off rolled around, the routine got interrupted and, bizarrely, Kyle found himself waiting with impatience for it start up again.

Kenny brought all kinds of new life to the apartment, which until he'd arrived, Kyle hadn't even known had been missing. Okay, sometimes he still managed to creep Kyle out with nothing but his mere presence in the room, but he also had a kind of lightness about him which was beyond refreshing. It was as if Kenny had the power to suck all the bad energy out of a place. And yeah that _was_ creepy, but it was a good kind of creepy. Kyle was still unsettled by Kenny, only now it was in a way that intrigued rather than worried him. The desire to figure Kenny out was too much for Kyle's scientific brain to resist.

Kenny, for his part, had a different agenda. Kyle was hot. That hadn't escaped his notice. Stan was oblivious. He'd picked up on that too. And the thing that eventually happened with Kyle? Well, that was just another symptom of the hedonistic shit.

* * *

A/N: My planning for this is getting kind of dark and twisted...I really don't know what has come over me. This fic is so far out of my comfort zone that it's just ridiculous. It's a little like an abusive realtionship. I hate it but I LOVE IT. More soon. Because I just can't stop.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: A word about the title. Kenny does die a couple of times in this fic, (I think it's a tricky decision you have to make with this fandom as to what extent you want to acknowledge Kenny's 'little problem' in stories where he is a central character...) but the title really doesn't have anything to do with that. Don't let 'grave' mislead you. Above all, this is supposed to be a story about deciding who you really are and what you want to stand for (and, you know, obviously also hot boys making out, but that's a given). Anyway, that's why the title is what it is.

For The Brat Prince. Because we had a deal. And because she writes the most spectacularly encouraging reviews a girl could ask for!

* * *

Kenny drove with pounding music and at breakneck speed, because Kenny did not fear death. Or, apparently, tinnitus. He didn't even wear a pissing seatbelt, and really, that was a bit more than Kyle could take.

"Dude, for real. Slow down. You're being a jackass," he chided, hands braced white-knuckled against the edge of the dashboard. Kenny tossed blonde bangs - which were too long to even fucking _see_ to drive - out of his eyes in an infuriatingly casual manner.

"Hedonism," he stated, just as casually.

"Fuck you. That cannot be your answer to everything."

Kenny just flashed Kyle that sideways smile and reached one precious steering hand away from the wheel to turn the stereo up higher.

Kyle and Kenny, welded to one another by recent circumstance as they were, had lately begun branching out together beyond their trips to the bar. It had started one Saturday, when Stan had been lying in bed in a deep, work-induced coma, his blackout blinds stripping his room of every scrap of light and Kyle had found himself drifting aimlessly around the apartment's limited space. The strict restraints on his time away from the office made Kyle feel compelled to do absolutely nothing with the little patches of freedom he got, but he was so easily bored that he really couldn't keep that up for long. He would get fidgety and end up doing crazy, pointless shit like arranging the thumbtacks on the kitchen pin board into new patterns, or trying to create the tallest possible tower out of all the remote controls that he and Stan owned between them. It was only when Kenny slouched down beside him on the sofa to offer advice on the construction of the latest tower that Kyle realised that he was not alone in his restlessness.

"You should lay the one with the rubber back on the bottom," Kenny had explained, leaning into Kyle's upper arm as he pointed at the remote, "See, because it'll grip better. Gives it more friction," he said, unable to resist smirking around the last word.

"Yeah, no, I tried that. But it's the longest so I need that one to go vertical," Kyle had muttered, all his attention intensely focused on making his latest arrangement balance correctly. Kenny had shrugged and flopped back in his seat, folding wiry arms across his chest.

"Whatever you say, dude. You seem pretty practised at this."

"It's not like I do this all fucking day," Kyle had snapped, tossing his head round to look at Kenny. That slight movement had caused the entire tower to collapse between his hands. Kyle had groaned and threaded frustrated fingers through his hair while Kenny winced sympathetically.

"Aw. Weak, dude. What is that? Like an hour of your life totally lost?"

"Pretty much," Kyle had replied glumly.

"Wow. Man, you guys sure know how to have one helluva good time in this apartment, huh? Stan sleeps all the hours of daylight like some freaking gothy-vampire or whatever the fuck kinda outcast he was trying be back in elementary, and you? Dude. Look at you. You're wasting your life playing blocks with remote controls."

"Fuck you, dude. What the hell are you doing with your life that's so awesome?" the redhead had retaliated. Kenny had given this a moment's thought before sitting forwards in one fluid motion and fixing Kyle with dancing blue eyes.

"I'm not doing shit. What do you say we change that?" he had asked with a smile.

So, while Stan slept on, Kyle and Kenny had started taking Saturday trips to nowhere in particular. Occasionally they made it as far as Denver, but mostly they didn't. It really wasn't important to Kyle where they went; simply getting out of the house was enough to make his life seem less two-dimensional.

Even though the logical parts of Kyle's brain knew that it totally wasn't Stan's fault, for the first two weeks of Stan's night shifts, Kyle hadn't been able help feeling something like resentment towards him for never being around. Then, as the emotion had gradually dulled and faded, Kenny had slipped into place, filling the gaping hole that Stan had left. It totally wasn't the same. But Kenny had a warm, addictive quality about him and his easy disregard for such fundamental things as personal safety made Kyle's pulse race.

This was why Kyle now found himself strapped securely to the front seat of a car that was practically falling apart around him, with the world's most reckless driver beside him at the wheel and his heart rate speeding sickeningly.

"Kenny, you know what? If you crash this fucking car, I swear to God..."

"You swear to God, what?"

"I swear to God I will poltergeist your ass for the rest of your days, because if we crash, one of us will not be coming back again. And guess who it'll be?"

"Chill out dude," Kenny drawled, before once more directing his attention to the stereo. "Aw _tune_!" he exclaimed, thumping the edge of the steering wheel enthusiastically in time to the song's opening chords.

Kenny was vaguely aware that he was being a dick. He hadn't missed the slight neurotic tinge of panic in Kyle's voice, but he was very consciously choosing to ignore it. Kenny already knew that he was kind of out of control these days.

He'd nailed a French girl named Collette back in high school, an exchange student from Toulouse who stayed for two months. She was intellectual, self-important and made no secret of the fact that she thought she was totally slumming it by sleeping with poor white-trash like Kenny. She'd told him as much outright. Kenny didn't really give a shit what she thought of him, as long as he got laid out of it. Which he did. Frequently. She liked to lie in bed afterwards, a sheet thrown carelessly across her boyish hips, and listen to the sound of her own voice while she attempted to educate Kenny in things he had no interest in learning. He would have completely blocked out her pretentious ramblings if it hadn't been for the smooth, hypnotic quality of her voice. That accent was sexy as hell and because of that he hung on her every word.

She told him, among other things, about a young French poet called Rimbaud, whose name Kenny only remembered because you said it like 'Rambo'. She explained how this guy had had issues with life, so had struck out against it. He'd written poems about child abuse, butt sex, dead bodies, to make people confront the stuff that they were desperate not to confront. He lived in squalor, bombarded his body with all manner of drugs and booze, smashed shit up that didn't belong to him, stood on tables in fancy restaurants and seduced men twice his age just to see how doing that stuff would make him feel. Rimbaud was all about feeling things you had never felt before and feeling them intensely, because that was only way around the complete monotony of life. The really bad shit gave you the greatest buzz. That was why society tried to keep you from it. Getting hooked on those feelings was fucking dangerous. And, as Collette lay beside him, eyes half-mast and a cigarette burning lazily between two delicate fingers, Kenny had thought, yeah. Hell, yeah.

He'd messed around with a lot of shit over the past few years, sex, drugs, death, all to test how it would make him feel. What the fuck else was he supposed to have done while Stan and Kyle were off living it up at college and Cartman was busy trying to take over the town with his lame-ass little security cameras?

The drugs had been a passing craze. The sex, mostly because it was free and didn't kill brain cells, had lasted. But the death thing? Okay, so that had become kind of an obsession. Kenny had spent the whole of his youth trying to avoid death, hoping that he would ultimately be able to cheat his way out of the twisted cycle that he was trapped in. Naturally, that turned out to be a crock of shit and he'd learned hard and fast that death was always going to win out in the end. So, Kenny got to thinking. What if he took charge of the whole cycle himself? What if, instead of waiting for death to come to him, he seized death by the collar and spat in its fucking face? As much as he hated it, because sometimes a death caught up with him that was so painful that it felt like his very soul was shredding, Kenny couldn't escape the fact that death was the ultimate high. He felt more, and harder, in those last few moments of breath than he did at any other time.

He began to experiment with suicide. Sometimes, if he was near the edge of something high, he would give in to the throbbing desire to simply cast his weight forwards that fraction too far. And sometimes, when he was driving alone on an empty stretch of highway, he would relinquish control of his latest junked-up vehicle and allow it to speed him to the grave. When that happened, it was as if he slipped into a kind of trance. The horizon would tilt wildly before him and the throaty growl of the car's engine would rise up above the pounding bass of the stereo, as his foot pressed the accelerator flat against the floor. The bones in his hands seemed to dissolve, leaving his fingers lying limp against the leather of the steering wheel. He could feel the intoxicating speeds rushing over him like gale-force wind, as if he were outside of the car's metal casing, as if he were flying. The euphoria would throb in his veins, blinding him, drowning him, making his chest constrict and his eyes roll back behind hyperactively flickering lids. He was God.

This time, it was only the cutting intensity of Kyle's voice, the sharp strength of his grip on Kenny's shoulder, which made Kenny's eyes snap open again in time to find a glaring, roaring beast of a pick-up bearing down upon them. The present smashed back into him and Kenny's heart damn near stopped right there as he threw the wheel sharply to one side and felt the car jerk spastically aside. The tyres screamed as they skidded off the icy road, still too fast, and Kenny amassed all his shattered concentration to negotiate a way out of this sudden disaster. Kenny knew how to steer like a pro when he had to.

The snow tyres were new and the white drifts were thick and cloying. Between them, they stripped the car of its speed and the tough wooden fencing which protected the forest from the death-trap highway served as an added life-line. The car scraped through the wooden planks and came to a rasping halt against one of the hulking fern trees which bordered the forest.

As the world settled around them once more, Kenny swallowed down the bile in his throat and let his aching hands fall lifelessly from the wheel. He looked at Kyle, still whole and beside him. The redhead's face was pale as the snow, his eyes wide and unblinking. He was gasping for breath as if his lungs were failing him.

"Kyle, breathe," Kenny tried to say, his voice croaking over the syllables. He reached out and wrapped unsteady fingers around his friend's arm, needing to anchor Kyle to him to check the belief that he was okay. At his touch, Kyle flicked heartbreakingly desperate green eyes in Kenny's direction, but, as their gazes met, the emotion in Kyle's face hardened quickly to blazing anger. Kyle shook Kenny's hand violently from him and mastered the trembling of his own hands enough to unclip his seatbelt and throw open the car door, climbing out into the snow.

"Shit," Kenny swore, trying and failing to open his own door, which was lodged against the trunk of the tree. He tucked his legs up and scrambled across the seats to get out of the passenger door. Kyle hadn't gone far. He was standing bare metres away, shin deep in snow, clutching his hair painfully tightly with both hands. Kenny approached him cautiously, trying not to make any sudden movements. He paused, a safe distance away, and waited. Eventually, he heard Kyle speak, his voice muffled by the stinging cold around them.

"What?" Kenny asked, unable to make out the words. When Kyle turned to face him, the force of his rage hit Kenny like a physical blow.

"I said what the _holy fuck _were you doing?" Kyle raged at him, "What's wrong with you? Jesus Christ! Did you think that was fucking _funny_?" Kenny shook his head.

"No," he whispered, because he had no other words say.

"You _nearly killed me_!" Kyle screamed, and Kenny could do nothing. Nothing but walk forwards and attempt to catch hold of Kyle's now violently shivering body. Kyle tried to fight Kenny's hands away, but his faculties were crumbling.

"Don't touch me," Kyle spat, which Kenny ignored.

"Dude, breathe," he tried again.

"Stop telling me to breathe! What the hell? You're the reason I almost have no fucking breath left to take! Don't tell me that!"

But Kyle's words were losing their force. As Kenny held Kyle firm, he felt his friend's weight begin to sag against him, so he made soothing noises, managed to enfold both arms around him completely. He could feel Kyle's heart pounding erratically, feel the adrenaline quivering in his muscles.

"I'm sorry," Kenny murmured, soft but sincere, "I lost control." Kyle made a hollow, war-torn sound, voice failing, now clinging to Kenny's shoulders to keep himself standing. Kenny led them both to the ravaged fence, watched Kyle's fingers grip at the rough wood, jagged splinters biting into his flesh.

"Are you okay?" Kenny asked, studying Kyle's face in concern. The redhead nodded, eyes downcast beneath long lashes, spots of feverish colour beginning to bleed back into the whiteness of his angular cheeks. Trauma made Kyle beautiful, Kenny thought, and the impulse to kiss him had arisen and been acted upon before Kenny had even had time to acknowledge it properly. His mouth brushed easily over Kyle's, the touch soothing and sure.

Kyle's lips parted instantly in surprise. It was a perfect invitation, but Kenny was too much of a gentleman to take advantage of it. He knew that good things come to those who wait, and that even better things come to those who don't prematurely freak out their still-identifying-as-straight male friends. Instead, he rested light fingertips chastely at the side of Kyle's neck and enjoyed it while it lasted. When Kyle made a little panic noise of realization and pushed Kenny predictably away, Kenny offered no resistance.

"What are you doing?" Kyle asked, in a voice so weak that it was barely there.

"I want you," Kenny replied simply. When Kyle spoke next, his voice had died a little more.

"What?" he breathed, and looked on the verge of falling apart. It was too much, Kenny realised.

He both heard and felt the rumble of an approaching truck. The snow-frosted gravel trembled at his feet. The truck was big and going fast enough to make it instant. The sudden decision to bail washed over him. Kenny stood up and walked slowly backwards towards the road. Kyle was watching him with wide eyes.

"Think about it," Kenny said, knowing full well that he was leaving Kyle no other option.

He felt the rush of air as the truck roared towards him and saw the awful moment of comprehension in Kyle's face before he stepped back directly into the path of the oncoming vehicle. Kenny's timing was impeccable. He was no suicide virgin.

The desperate, involuntary cry which was torn from Kyle's kiss-flushed lips was swallowed whole by howl of the truck's foghorn and the thunder of wheels tearing over asphalt and bone. The driver didn't even stop to see what he had hit.

Kyle stood, panting, feet riveted to the ground, eyes fixed on the empty space where Kenny had been. Gradually, he felt his heart slow its fitful pounding and his fingers uncurl from tight, vice-like fists. The horror turned haltingly into a sluggish kind of numbness. This may have been a whole new level of fucked up shit right here, but it wasn't the first time Kyle had seen his friend's glossy blood splatter across the highway. The feeling returned to his feet and the sensible parts of his brain clicked back to life. Kyle walked forwards and fished Kenny's car keys out of the mess.

As he turned the keys in the ignition and felt the engine purr responsively to life at his touch, he reflected bitterly that this was totally a new contender for the death which would flash most often through his mind when he looked at Kenny. Then, with a slippery screech of tyres on flattened snow, Kyle was soon guiding the car smoothly back to the apartment, surrounded by nothing but silence, cold afternoon light and his own rioting thoughts.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, excuse the melodrama. Melodrama and I kind of go hand in hand...

But onwards! To write more Stan.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: This has been rushed through because I am a bad author and want to get to the bits that excite me most. I freely admit it. As such.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who have taken the time to review. You guys are super awesome.

* * *

Stan was in the kitchen when Kyle got back to the apartment. He was eating cereal standing up, his dark hair a rumpled mess.

"Hey," he called, upon hearing the front door slam. Kyle didn't return the greeting. He wafted past his roommate, bad mood trailing behind him like acrid smoke, and began washing his hands furiously at the kitchen sink. Stan assessed the situation. Then, he let his spoon rest against the edge of his cereal bowl and asked carefully,

"Where's Kenny?"

"Dead," was Kyle's short response, before he shut off the tap, shook the water violently from his hands and left the kitchen without another glance at Stan. The decisive clunk of Kyle's bedroom door closing echoed down the empty hallway.

Stan waited briefly for any signs of re-emergence before picking up his cereal and lifting a slow, thoughtful spoonful to his mouth.

It had been almost a month since Kenny had moved into the apartment and perhaps about two weeks since Stan had started to find himself accidentally wishing that Kenny's redneck shadow had never darkened their door. It wasn't because he had a problem with Kenny. They had been friends for so long that they were practically blood, after all. It was simply that Kenny was always _there_. Kenny and Kyle were basically joined at the hip now and even though Stan knew it was totally faggy, he was beginning to feel excluded by his two friends' brand new closeness. Of course, it had a lot to do with the fact that, because their sleeping patterns matched up, Kenny was obviously going to see more of Kyle than Stan did. Stan accepted that. He did. He just hadn't expected Kyle to be quite so responsive to it, and now he felt weirdly betrayed. After all the years of relentlessly close friendship that he and Kyle had shared, his super-best had been swayed by a few glitzy words and a careless smile from Kenny? What the hell was that about?

It wouldn't have mattered though, if not for the fact that Stan was sort of desperate for one-on-one super-best time right now. Work had become all-consuming lately and Stan felt like it was slowly eating him alive. He could feel himself crumbling under the relentless pressure and these days, Kyle was the only glimmer of light on a very dark horizon.

As he placed his empty cereal bowl in the sink, Stan realised that he was a little glad that Kenny was dead. And, he was even gladder two hours later when Kyle drifted into the living room looking lost and sort of hopeful.

"Hey, dude?" Kyle asked, scuffing his toes against the floorboards contritely.

"Yeah?"

"Do you, like, want to go eat somewhere?"

Stan stayed casual, as if this wouldn't be the first time they had spent alone together outside of the apartment since they had moved in, as if it wasn't the first time that Kyle had spoken to him politely in about a week. He shrugged and nodded.

"Sure."

So, thirty minutes later, they were seated opposite one another in the plastic booth of a generic diner, eating the first round meal that Stan had had in three days. He was trying to savour it as much as he could, but the experience was being spoilt by the fact that even when dead, Kenny was managing to get in between himself and Kyle.

Something had obviously happened today. Kyle could get pissy about really petty shit sometimes, but Stan always got to hear about it. Actually, he was never given the choice to _not _hear about it, and Kyle could rant on for hours about the slightest wrong. But, whatever had gone down before Kenny's latest death had Kyle all shaken up and he wasn't willing to talk about it. Stan had asked, of course he had, but all he got out of Kyle in response were vague, cryptic statements which only made the whole thing even more confusing.

"The guy has issues, dude," Kyle said, glaring down at his plate.

"Well, yeah. We knew that."

"No. I mean...other issues. _New _issues."

"Like what?"

Stan raised curious eyebrows when Kyle didn't answer. He was pushing the last cold fries listlessly around his plate.

"Kyle. Like what?" Stan prompted. Kyle's brow furrowed, but he did not look up.

"He..."

"What?"

Kyle's frown intensified. Then, he shook his head, tossed the fork aside and looked at Stan irritably.

"Do you know what? It doesn't matter. Let's not talk about it," he said.

"Dude-"

"Stan. I said, let's not talk about it, alright? Jesus."

"Okay. Fine," Stan said, holding up placating hands.

When they didn't talk about that, Kyle was totally normal. And, while the knowledge that Kyle was spazzing out over whatever Kenny had done still niggled at the back of Stan's mind, he had to at least appreciate the quality time he was getting to spend with his friend. After dinner they headed back to the apartment where they sat at the table, drinking beer and playing cards.

"No. You are shitting me," Kyle was saying, eyes wide and disbelieving. Stan was unable to control his laughter at the horror in Kyle's expression.

"I'm telling you, dude! For real. The fatass has a girlfriend."

"No _way_! He does _not_!"

"He does."

"Have you seen her?"

"No..."

"Right. So, he's lying then. The fat fuck."

Stan made a sceptical sound, shuffling his cards absently.

"I dunno, dude. I kind of believed him."

"Yeah, Stan. Because you're gullible. You trust people too much."

"No. I mean, he was all, like, embarrassed and shit. I had to basically drag it out of him. If he had been lying, he would have been cocky as hell. Right? I think he, you know, really has feelings for her, or something," Stan said, smirking as Kyle squeezed his eyes shut and made a gagging noise.

"Ugh, no, dude! Come on, you're going to make me puke on my cards! Don't do that."

"Sweet. If you puke on your hand then mine has to win, right?" Stan grinned, peering at Kyle over the fan of his cards. Kyle's green eyes were light as he smiled before tossing his own cards onto the table with a graceful flick of his wrist.

"Not yet, dude," he said triumphantly, "Read 'em and weep."

It seemed, Stan thought, that he and Kyle were back on track. And, as if to prove him right, Sunday continued promisingly.

Together, they drove to pick out a flat-pack shelving unit for the sitting room, which really just involved choosing the first one they found to fit the measurements that Stan had scribbled down on the back of a grocery store receipt. Then, they wedged the thing into the trunk of Stan's car and drove it home again. They spent the afternoon putting it together and loading it with their vast joint collection of DVDs and video games and whatever else happened to be on the floor at the time. Kyle's presence completely eclipsed all of Stan's thoughts of work and for the first time in weeks Stan felt able to breathe easy again.

Kyle was similarly finding hanging out with Stan to be the perfect distraction from the memories which were clamouring at the edges of his mind that he felt no inclination to confront any time soon. Stan, ever the loyal super-best, was unknowingly propping up the delicate mental barriers that Kyle had constructed around those particular thoughts.

Unfortunately, that all came crashing down at six o'clock that evening when Kenny let himself into the apartment with the spare key that Stan had given him when he'd first arrived. At the sight of him Kyle wanted to lose it, to scream what the fuck, how dare you? Only, Stan was right there, right _there_, so he could do nothing but sit stock still and say everything he wanted to say to Kenny with his eyes alone.

Kenny looked straight at him, saw it all, but merely grinned.

"Hi guys. What's up?" he said as if he wasn't the world's biggest douche. Kyle wanted to rip his face off.

"Hey, Kenny. Back in one piece?" Stan asked, the fucking complicit idiot.

Kenny spread his arms wide at his sides and made a show of glancing down at himself.

"Looks that way."

"Awesome. Hey, we were just talking about catching a movie," Stan barrelled on, "What do you think? You up for that? Or do you need to like, rehabilitate and shit?" Kenny shook his head, in defiance of Kyle's horrified look.

"Movie sounds good."

So they went to the movie, and it was awkward as fuck. Stan noticed of course. Kyle kept feeling Stan's curious gaze sweeping over him, but he was too angry to act any more natural. Stan could think whatever the hell he wanted to because Kyle was seeing red right now.

After the movie was over and they were back at the apartment, all Kyle wanted to do was go to bed and close his door against everything. But, he couldn't. He had to stay up. He was too terrified to leave Stan and Kenny alone together because he had no idea what Stan might ask or what Kenny might let slip. So, he sat with them, yawning and clock-watching and trying not to let his head nod heavily against Stan's shoulder, which it seemed to be very interested in doing.

"Dude. Go to bed," Stan told him repeatedly, but each time Kyle just jerked upright again with a breathy,

"I'm fine."

Kenny appeared to be finding the whole situation a freaking riot. He had obviously clocked what Kyle was afraid of and was making the most of it by taking every opportunity to direct sly, private smiles in Kyle's direction. The twisted little bastard.

Eventually, Stan announced that he was going to his room to dick about on his laptop and try to keep himself awake until dawn in preparation for his next shift. Kyle floated gratefully down the corridor behind him and fell into bed, fully expecting to be instantly embraced by sleep. But, the pillow felt rough and sack-like beneath his cheek. The silence was too loud; it was ringing in his ears. The glow from his digital clock was blinding through the flimsy shade of his eyelids. And, as his defences weakened, the predatory memories crept upon him. Kyle slid in and out of fitful dreams about blood-stained snow and the velvet press of Kenny's lips against his own.

At precisely five thirty-six that morning, with the first chinks of amber light beginning to edge around his blinds and the soft echo of Stan's snores thrumming through his wall, Kyle reached breaking point. He threw aside the covers and padded towards the living room, where Kenny slept haphazardly on the sofa bed, entwined in a tangle of blankets. Kyle allowed his own impulsiveness to spur him on as he sat down carefully on the edge of the unstable bed.

"Kenny. Wake up," he said and watched, sort of breathless, as his friend's sharp blue eyes slid open. The speed with which Kenny became alert was disorientating and, as he sat up and fixed Kyle with that ever-knowing gaze, it was all Kyle could do to hold his nerve. He pushed the uncertainty down as deep as it would go and when Kenny tilted his head quizzically to one side, Kyle let the words rush out before he could really consider the implications of giving voice to them.

"I think I want you too," he said, with a huskiness that was by no means intentional.

Kenny left the words hanging in the air for all of half a heartbeat, before the corners of his mouth stretched into a glowing smirk.

"Hell yeah, you do," Kenny drawled, reaching forwards.

That smirk was the last thing that Kyle saw before his eyes closed and all intelligent thought evaporated. This time, Kenny struck like a snake, angling his lips up against Kyle's with a graze of teeth and flicker of tongue. His hands gripped at Kyle's wrist and throat, the lithe fingers pressing against the fluttering rhythm of Kyle's pulse. This was not like the kiss which Kyle's memory had been replaying all night. This meant business. This was strings attached.

The hand at Kyle's throat slid up into his hair, then closed slowly into a fist, tugging his head back and opening his mouth to the mercy of a deeper kiss. Kyle heard himself make a small, desperate noise, like a fucking girl. Kenny had done this before and it showed. It was the best kiss of Kyle's life.

Unwilling to be mastered, Kyle gathered together the anger and confusion and arousal which had been toying with his brain since Saturday, and threw it all behind returning Kenny's advances. He spread his hands across Kenny's shoulder blades, the feel of whole, solid, bone and sinew keeping him grounded. He used that grip to pull Kenny closer against him and they made out until the sun was drowning the room in brightness.

Kyle was giving himself over to this shit completely, Kenny registered. But, because he could sense the bubbling vat of his friend's uncertainty seething beneath the bravado and because Kenny really couldn't miss another shift (fuck hedonism; Kenny liked his job and wanted to keep it), when Kenny felt the full glare of morning beating against the back of his neck, he eased himself determinedly back away from Kyle and held the distance between them. Kyle looked at him, pupils dilated and smouldering, eyelids heavy. He was barely recognisable beneath the haze of lust and Kenny's resolve almost cracked.

"Yeah," Kenny gasped out, ashamed of how discomposed he sounded, "I mean, _fuck yeah_. But, dude, come on. You have work. I have work. And well, shit, we're gonna have a whole night to ourselves that needs filling, right?"

The grin that Kenny had waiting was stopped short by Kyle's fingers flexing coaxingly against his thighs.

"So maybe we got food poisoning and call in sick?" the redhead said, his voice as alien and intoxicating as his eyes. Kenny had to violently clamp down on the urge to hurl his childhood friend down against the mattress that very second and do him until he screamed.

"I can't," Kenny managed, voice strained. Kyle's hands stilled and all at once he was looking at Kenny with those familiar, intelligent eyes again.

"Are you being _sensible_?" he asked incredulously, one eyebrow arched.

"I guess so."

"Dude. What the fuck?"

Kenny smiled languidly, hooked his hand underneath one of Kyle's, which was still resting against his thigh, and wove their fingers together.

"Don't worry," he said, lifting their joined hands and pressing his lips against Kyle's knuckles, "I promise I'll think about you when I jerk off at my lunch break."

The crudeness was, Kenny thought, a pretty flimsy cover for the way his voice had damn near cracked a minute before. But it worked, and Kyle's eyes, which had momentarily softened at the unexpected touch, narrowed as he ripped his hand out of Kenny's grasp.

"Sick, dude! Why would you say that to me?"

Kenny chuckled and climbed out of bed, fully intending to beat Kyle to the bathroom.

"Because," he replied with what he knew was infuriating flippancy, "It's what gets me off." Kyle scowled at him.

"Goddamnit, Kenny. You've spent too much time in hell. It's making you fucked up."

Kenny's smile flashed white and devilish in the dawn light. And, as Kyle watched his friend's lean figure slink across the room, all of his uncertainty dropped suddenly away.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so Stan kind of got usurped. My bad. But Stan's not kissing people right now, sooo....

A Kenny-centric chapter next, with added Cartman, THEN a real honest-to-God Stan chapter after that. With some actual Style. Check it.

Also, I was so distracted by finishing this chapter that I let my mug of tea go cold. I am British. This is the greatest sacrifice known to me. I hope you are happy, fanfic. I hope you are bloody happy.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Kenny's position here is like my worst nightmare. I have travel in my blood. If, for some reason, I was prevented from doing it, I would probably have to kill myself. True story.

* * *

Kenny worked every day surrounded by adventure. That was how he saw it. So what that it didn't strictly belong to him? He worked every day surrounded by _other people's_ adventure, and that was good enough.

There was only one travel agent in the whole of South Park. It was called Wings, and Kenny had been detouring past the place for years. As a child he had been mesmerised by the shiny posters in the windows which showed endless blue seas, dreaming spires, and feathered tribal costumes. There was a whole world out there, Kenny had come to realise; a real world that you could see and hear and touch. It had been almost unthinkable to his elementary school self that there were places other than this cold and soulless pocket of America, where snow didn't choke every corner and where people weren't too bigoted and hateful to really live their lives. The small scraps of experience of other countries and cultures that Kenny had scavenged in his youth had kindled a steadily growing fire inside of him that had now matured into blazing wanderlust.

Unfortunately for Kenny though, travel was a luxury that people like him were not entitled to. Travel required money, a lot of money, and time off work. The two things didn't exactly go hand in hand and that was why, when he'd seen the job advertised in the window of Wings, Kenny had stopped dead in his tracks on the icy sidewalk.

After the others had fucked off to college or settled down to chase dreams of power, Kenny had left his high school job in a fast food restaurant because he had known that he was totally better than that. He might not have been college material, nor had the drive and ruthlessness to really make something of himself, but he was better than a life of _that _anyway. The job at Wings was the perfect way out. It was safe, (because as much of a buzz as death was, it kind of sucked when you weren't expecting it and were paid by the hour) it was respectable and, most importantly, it fed his soul just enough each day that he was able to keep himself whole.

Kenny was pretty good at the job, too. He had a way with people; he knew how to make his smile so open and friendly that they couldn't help but do whatever he suggested. Besides, Kenny spent so long poring over travel websites, guidebooks and copies of National Geographic in order to nourish the yearning itch at the bottom of his heart, that he had amassed an incomparable bank of knowledge. Beneath his desk at work were piles of dog-eared Lonely Planet guides that Kenny had bought for a dollar each at the second hand book store. Choice passages of the books were now highlighted in acid yellow so that he could find them more easily. The desk's top drawer was stuffed full of crumpled maps which had routes and itineraries scribbled across them in marker. In short, Kenny had made himself into an expert on places he had never been and things that he had never done.

The only other employee in the place was a chubby, middle-aged woman named Charlene who didn't like dealing with trips to any country whose name she couldn't pronounce, which was most of them. Charlene hated backpackers, believing them all to be slackers and drug addicts. She couldn't understand why a person would ever want to leave America for any reason other than to lie on a beach sipping cocktails, and she was highly suspicious of anyone who did. So, Kenny handled all of 'those types' and became the Wings go-to guy for adventure travel.

Business was pretty quiet a lot of the time. Most of the people who came in either wanted Charlene's brand of package vacation or had mistakenly assumed that Wings was a Chinese restaurant. But, since they had started advertising in the local colleges (Kenny's idea) the flow of people looking for something quirky and independent was steadily increasing. On occasion, they had days when people actually had to wait in line to sit in front of Kenny's desk and watch in awe as he would use his maps and guidebooks to weave together a life-altering voyage out of thin air.

Today was definitely not one of those days. Charlene was filing her nails, whilst humming tunelessly to the radio and there wasn't a client in sight. Kenny sat on his wheeled chair, his new Laos Lonely Planet open on the desk in front of him. Kenny wasn't thinking about Laos, though. For once, his mind had wandered away from his charmed imaginings of rough seas and bustling bazaars to fixate instead on the memory of Kyle's heated kisses trailing over his throat.

Kenny had grown up in deprivation. He'd never had the things he'd wanted as a kid. But with people it was different. When Kenny decided he wanted someone, he damn well got them, no matter how complicated it made things. He was no stranger to rushed, panicked affairs conducted entirely in illicit gaps of time. But, when Kenny had decided that he'd wanted Kyle, he had never expected it to get as intense as it had done, as intense as it was now. Some nights, the wait for Stan to leave for work was practically torture and the second that the front door closed on Stan's oblivious farewell, Kyle and Kenny would be on each other as desperately as if the very hounds of hell were snapping at their backs. Kenny's original deduction that Kyle was hot had been an understatement; the man was dynamite. The first time they'd fucked had damn near blown Kenny's mind. Kyle was a natural. Kenny realised that, as they had grown up, it had been too easy for him to forget what he already knew resided beneath Kyle's repressive neatness and advanced vocabulary. At his core, Kyle was passionate, impulsive and stubborn as fuck. Kenny felt privileged to have been able to uncover that side of him again.

Lying in bed after that first time, Kenny had trailed sated fingers across one of Kyle's exotically angled cheekbones and watched Kyle's calm, green eyes tilt in his direction.

"You know," Kenny had said, "You're not taking all of this like a gay virgin."

"That's because I'm not one," Kyle had replied, after a moment of calculated hesitation. Kenny had kind of suspected this, given that all the supplies they had needed had been right there in Kyle's bedside cabinet, but that didn't stop him from smiling teasingly.

"Kyle Broflovski. What would your mother say?"

"Nothing. Because God-willing she will never, ever, ever know," Kyle had said, pointedly narrowing his eyes at Kenny in warning.

They kept it clandestine. That was obviously how Kyle preferred it, and Kenny was totally on board with that because it made the whole thing more interesting.

It wasn't that it was easier that way, because it really _wasn't_. Keeping this kind of shit secret was a fucking nightmare, particularly from people like Cartman, who had a God-given instinct for uncovering things that he had no business messing with.

Which was why, when Kenny got home from work that day to find Cartman leaning against the wall outside of the apartment door, he almost turned on his heel and made a break for it. Unfortunately, Cartman's beady little eyes had already clocked him and it was too late to make a retreat.

"'Ey!" the fat-ass bellowed at Kenny down the corridor, "What fucking time do you call this?"

Kenny sighed, fished his keys out of his pocket and slouched reluctantly down the hallway towards Cartman.

"End of work time," he said, squeezing past Cartman's bulky form to reach the door. Kenny had to let Cartman in. He didn't have much choice; once the door was open, he obviously couldn't keep Cartman out. So, Kenny settled for being as unwelcoming as he could.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"I'm here to see the hippy," Cartman said. He stomped inside and looked around the apartment disdainfully.

"Stan's working."

"What?"

"He's at work. Working," Kenny reiterated, slowly, because sometimes you had to speak to Cartman like he was a child. Cartman shook back his sleeve and peered at the chunky Rolex he wore strapped to his wrist.

"Jesus," he muttered, "That guy is so whipped."

"Uh-huh. Look, do you want-"

The words 'to leave' had been on the tip of Kenny's tongue, but Cartman was already lowering his gigantic ass onto the couch, so Kenny switched to saying 'a drink or something' because once Cartman was down, there was really nothing you could do about his presence until he decided to remove himself of his own accord.

"Don't mind if I do, Kenny. Don't mind if I do," Cartman said, as he kicked muddy, loafer-clad feet up onto the coffee table. Kyle was going to totally freak out when he made it home, Kenny thought.

He was proved right ten minutes later when Kyle stepped through the door, tie hanging loose around his neck and his cheeks splashed with colour from the cold. Kenny felt his blood thrum gleefully at the sight of him, but, as Kyle's expression darkened abruptly, Kenny realised that while Cartman was present, he had even less chance of getting his hands on Kyle than he did when Stan was around. He felt an all-new lurch of dislike for Cartman as the fat-ass pulled the beer bottle away from him lips with a wet smacking sound.

"Why, hello Kyle," he sneered, dragging out the syllables, "How nice to see you."

Kyle ignored this saccharine greeting and directed his full attention at Kenny.

"What the hell is he doing here?"

"Dude, I dunno. He just turned up. I couldn't get rid of him. Look at him. He's like twice my size," Kenny said.

"Yeah," Cartman retaliated with lightning speed, "Because my parents weren't too poor to feed me when I was a kid."

Kenny opened his mouth to retort, but Kyle was already there.

"Shut up, you fat fuck!" Kyle spat, the anger rippling off of him in thick, sensuous waves.

"'Ey! Don't you speak to me like that, you ass-ramming Jew!"

Kyle's eyes were blazing and for a moment, Kenny thought that Kyle might throw himself across the room and beat Cartman to a pulp, which would have been pretty awesome to watch. Sadly, the adult side of Kyle won out.

"Screw this, man," he muttered, with a shake of his head, "I'm out. Kenny, come tell me when that bastard gets the fuck out of our house."

"Yes, sir," Kenny grinned, saluting Kyle lazily with two fingers. Kyle's eyes had locked with his for just a second too long and Kenny hadn't missed the promise they had held. His gaze automatically followed Kyle's ass out of the room, because he was getting used to looking.

Kenny was lost in smirking fantasy when the lard-ass interrupted him by coughing fatly.

"What do you want, supersize?" Kenny snapped. But, when he turned and saw the look on Cartman's face, his irritation ebbed quickly away.

"Dude," Cartman breathed, eyes twinkling as if he had just stumbled across buried treasure.

"What?" Kenny asked, playing dumb, even though he could see in Cartman's face that the fat-ass already had it perfectly figured out. Cartman glanced very theatrically in the direction that Kyle had gone and then looked back at Kenny.

"Did you fuck the Jew?" he asked eagerly.

The bastard hadn't even bothered to lower his voice. Kenny thanked God that Stan had already left the building.

"No! Jesus Christ, Cartman. That's sick, dude. Come on," Kenny protested instantly. But then, without thinking, he ran his tongue over his front teeth. It was a habit that Kenny had when he was uncomfortable with a conversation and Cartman knew it too well.

"You did!" he crowed in delight, "You fucking banged the Jew!"

Before Kenny had even thought about moving, he had lunged out of his seat and seized the front of Cartman's shirt with both hands.

"Cartman! I didn't bang...Kyle," he ground out.

"But you want to," Cartman pressed, one chubby hand closing over Kenny's to safeguard against the blonde throttling him. Kenny quickly decided that it was the lesser of the two lies and as such, it would be easier to convince Cartman of.

"Yeah. Okay? I want to," he hissed.

"Weak."

"You say anything about this to him or to Stan or to _anyone else_," Kenny growled threateningly, "And I will suicide bomb your fucking house, dude, I swear to God."

The pitying smile on Cartman's face nearly made Kenny want to hurl Kyle's honour right out the window and own up to the truth.

"Aww. Don't worry about it Kenny," Cartman cooed, mockingly, "Your sick little Jew-loving secret is safe with me."

The sympathy was revoltingly fake, but, as Kenny held the door open for Cartman a half hour later, he knew that the fat-ass _would _keep the secret. As long as Cartman thought that telling people would do nothing to hurt Kyle, he wouldn't breathe a word of it. Deep down, beneath all the layers of blubber and prejudice, Cartman was actually an almost decent guy. He wouldn't deliberately try to harm Kenny if he wasn't going to gain anything from it himself. And Cartman had to keep it secret, because if anything were to jolt Stan out of his ignorance, then this whole thing with Kyle would be over in a heartbeat.

Kenny knew that he was screwing Stan over. Stan hadn't figured it out yet, but seriously. The guy was getting screwed. And Kenny didn't feel guilty about it, because he somehow suspected that Stan still had the upper hand, even if Stan didn't realise it. Okay, so that seemed insane when it was Kenny's name that Kyle came moaning every night, but Stan and Kyle? Those two just had a way about them. And if it came to a contest, Kenny didn't rate his chances against the all-mighty power of the super-best.

Kyle and Kenny never talked about why they were hiding what was going on between them from the one person it would have made the most sense to tell, but they didn't have to, because really, Kenny knew already.

* * *

A/N: For those who are reading this for the Style, I promise that it will come. But it needs to come second and it needs to come slowly or this story won't work. Rest assured, though, some of my favourite scenes I have sketched out for later chapters are the Style ones. I know I might seem like I'm totally on Kenny's side right now, but K² hasn't quite won out yet! Style is still fighting its OTP corner good and hard...


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Yo dudes. Can you say 'Style'? Because, uh, I sure can...

* * *

Stan had had a traumatic couple of days. The E.R. was short-staffed. Again. And it was fucking chaos. Amid the beeping pagers, the endless flurry of paperwork and the constant buzz of that one light bulb that utility were apparently just too goddamn busy to fix, Stan was only just managing to stay afloat.

He'd become pretty damn awesome at multi-tasking. His mother thought she knew how to multi-task? Bullshit. She had never seen Stan work. The point was, Stan did his job well, and he was barely coping tonight. The weak and the lame didn't stand a chance. The latest student nurse who was shadowing him for his shift had been long lost to the churning whirl of busy activity. Stan hadn't seen her in hours. That was how you learned most in a profession like this, by tripping and plummeting into the deep end. It was all hands on deck and book-learning could only get you so far. The sooner the new recruits learnt that, the better. But, Stan was officially supposed to be looking after the girl, and that meant that if she killed anyone, he was probably liable. He did live with a lawyer, so whatever, but his conscience kind of wasn't that thrilled about the prospect.

Stan was striding purposefully down the corridor in search of a kidney dish, because obviously they were too precious for there to be anything like a plentiful supply actually _in_ the E.R., while simultaneously keeping his eyes peeled for a quaking female form cowering in a disinfected corner when he was stopped in his tracks by a pretty, dark-haired woman with a bundled-up infant in her arms. She was kicking the coffee machine with the toe of one designer black riding boot and pushing her hair clumsily out of her face in frustration. That coffee machine was a fucked up piece of shit but Stan could not express in words how vital the thing was to the successful running of the E.R. There were some nights where the caffeine it provided was all that kept him going. This was totally one of those nights. The last thing he needed was for some spazzed-out harpy to smash his lifeline to pieces.

"Hey," he called, hurrying over and laying calming fingers on one slender arm, which was hooked awkwardly around the baby. Jesus, Stan thought. This woman can't hold a child for shit. When she turned to look at him, though, the shock of recognition wiped away all traces of irritation.

"Wendy?" he gaped.

"Stan!"

Her blue eyes stretched wide, mirroring his own. They stared at one another, taking each other in. The surrealism of the moment descended upon them, rendering them both incoherent.

"You work here?" Wendy asked superfluously, her eyes trailing up and down Stan's telltale uniform. Stan nodded and then pointed at the baby.

"You...?"

Wendy glanced down at the child as if surprised to find it there. She looked quickly back up at Stan.

"Oh no! No, no! This isn't mine," Wendy said in a rush, "It's my cousin's. She's having kind of a tough time at the moment so I flew over to help her out for a few days. I said I'd watch the baby but I don't really have much experience with them and he seemed like he was breathing funny so I thought I should bring him down here. In case it was something serious. You know?"

Stan fought the urge to roll his eyes. He couldn't stand the 'in case' people, who clogged up the E.R.'s precious time.

"I'm such an idiot," she muttered, a sheepish smile playing around her lips.

"No," Stan said, ever the expert at hiding what he really thought of the people encountered at work, "babies are hard. They take practice." He looked down at the bundle of blankets which was propped uncomfortably in her arms. Stan couldn't help but wince.

"But, I mean, maybe don't hold him like that for a start. You're kind of squashing his head."

"What?"

"Here. Look," Stan reached out, repositioned her arms and settled the baby in them more appropriately. "That feels better, right?"

Wendy didn't answer. When Stan looked up to see why, he found her staring at him in something like awe. Suddenly uncomfortable, he opened his mouth to ask another generic question but Wendy filled the silence before he had the chance.

"I've missed you," she blurted, and Stan didn't know how to respond, which was why when she suggested that they meet for coffee to catch up on his next day off, he had agreed way faster than he really wanted to.

As a result, two days later he and Wendy were both sat cradled in plush coffee-coloured armchairs while the soft chords of Harbucks music washed over them. Stan had never liked this place. It was too complicated. He liked his coffee plain, minus the jazz hands and flavoured syrups. Unfortunately for him, the regular coffee at Harbucks kind of tasted like dishwater. It was really a lose-lose situation. But, a shared bemoaning of the evils of huge conglomerates like this had made for a good icebreaker, while helping each other to decipher the complexities of the mysteriously coded menu had carried them over the first awkward conversation hurdle.

Wendy had pressed a kiss to Stan's cheek in greeting when she had arrived. She was exactly the same, he reflected: same perfect skin, same sweet scent, and he still felt nothing for her. After the break-up with Wendy, Kyle had managed to set Stan so firmly back on his feet that Stan had been able to return to school fully prepared to be friends with the girl who had so recently shattered his heart.

"Dude, you never really loved her anyway," Stan remembered Kyle saying quietly, as they both sat slumped against the redhead's wardrobe, "You idolised the fuck out of her, but you didn't love her."

At the time it had sounded like blasphemy. But, when Stan saw Wendy again on the first day back at school, he had almost laughed in her face because, as soon as he saw her again, he had realised that Kyle had been absolutely right. Stan had had no trouble making friends with Wendy after that, and they'd remained really close until the end of high school, when Wendy had launched herself off to Brown and thrown herself into a Politics degree, never to be seen again. Neither of them had been good at keeping in touch and this was the first he had seen of her in four years. Needless to say, the conversation was a little stilted.

"So, are you still living at home?" Wendy asked. She held her mug with both hands curled around it: the same as Kyle. Stan shook his head.

"No. I'm living with Kyle now. We have an apartment over towards Cooper Street."

Wendy's carefully shaped eyebrows rose a little and she straightened in her chair as if stretching to see something in the distance.

"Oh, you are? Living with him how?"

"Er. What? I'm, you know, living with him. Like, he's my roommate," Stan said, "Kenny's staying with us right now, too."

"Oh."

Wendy's posture sagged slightly and her lips pulled into a tiny pout of disappointment. Stan stared at her uncertainly. He didn't spend enough time around women now, he decided, since he obviously no longer understood them at all.

"How the hell did you expect me to be living with him?" Stan asked, his tight smile attempting to soften the accusation of insanity with which the question was loaded.

"Well," Wendy began, then hesitated and assessed Stan coolly with her gaze. "Don't freak out if I tell you," she said. Stan shrugged and Wendy sat thoughtfully for a moment, one finger tapping distractedly against the ceramic Harbucks mug.

"It was at Bebe's Christmas party, tenth grade," she said eventually, her expression carefully guarded, "Do you remember?"

Stan frowned and cast his mind back to those seemingly ancient days just before the break-up.

"The one where Bebe hooked up with Token?" he asked.

"That's right."

"I remember."

"Yeah." Wendy pursed her lips before continuing. "Well, at that party, Cartman told me that you were gay for Kyle."

Stan rolled his eyes. It was not the first time that Cartman had made the accusation, but accusations from Cartman meant nothing.

"And you believed that fat fuck?" he asked, barely able to keep the disdain from his voice.

"No, of course not, Stan," Wendy replied sharply, "I'm not retarded. I told him to go fuck himself, obviously." She tossed the silky curtain of her hair over her shoulder and lifted her chin in her same old regal manner. "That was back when Cartman was trying to get me to sleep with him, anyway. Every word he said to me that year was total bullshit."

"Cartman was trying to get you to sleep with him when we were still together?" Stan couldn't help but blurt.

"Yes, that's what I said."

"That son of a-"

Wendy shook her head and set her mug of coffee down to protect it from her increasingly animated speech.

"Stan! That doesn't matter now! The point is I didn't believe Cartman," she said, "But then, I went back inside and I watched you with him. Kyle, I mean. And I realised that it didn't matter what Cartman did or didn't say about it, because I could see it for myself."

"See what?"

"You. And Kyle."

Wendy's eyes had grown serious. It took a moment to sink in.

"Holy shit, Wendy!" Stan yelped, then lowered his voice as Wendy shushed him furiously, "You- You really thought- I am not _gay for Kyle_!"

"Okay," Wendy said, in the same placid tone that Stan himself used to speak to hysterical patients.

"I'm _not_!"

"I said_ okay_, Stan," she replied shortly before suddenly becoming very interested in studying the nutritional information leaflets in the holder at the centre of the table. Stan stared at her, fragments of thoughts battering against the inside of his skull.

"Is...that why you broke up with me?" Stan heard himself ask, incredulous.

Wendy looked at him in surprise before her expression softened into kindness.

"Stan. No. No way. That's...that's just why I thought you might be okay with it. I knew he'd take care of you," she said, and Stan couldn't respond to that, because it was too true. A silence fell between them which roared with unasked, unanswerable questions.

"Do you want to split a piece of cake or something?" Wendy asked eventually, to kick-start the conversation again.

They kept very carefully clear of that particular topic for the rest of the time they spent together. When they parted it was with genuine smiles and well-meaning promises to make a better effort at keeping in touch. Despite that, Stan still walked home feeling queasy, because he could not escape the fact that Wendy, who had always seemed to Stan to be the fount of all knowledge, was actually a total idiot.

Stan remembered the last hour of the last day of the last summer before leaving for college. He and Kyle had spent it together, sitting side by side on Stan's desk, now stripped of its eternal clutter, staring out the window at the slowly drifting clouds. They had barely spoken, because all the things they had to say to one another were things that words just didn't work for. There had been a tension between them, as if they knew that something monumental were about to tear into them, which, as far as they were concerned, it kind of was. Leaving home had been like nothing Stan could ever have imagined, but leaving Kyle? That had felt so fundamentally wrong and twisted that Stan could barely believe that he was even going to go through with it. This is it, he had thought at the time. The people you care about. That's what life fucking _is_. Willingly removing yourself from those people had seemed like pure insanity, and Kyle was the most important of them all. Stan had thought that Wendy understood that, even if nobody else had. Now, as he trudged home through the snow, the image in his mind of Wendy's warm smile and clear blue eyes was marred with the glaring brand of 'traitor'. Distracted as he was by Wendy's betrayal, Stan did not notice the seeds of doubt which she had sown stealthily taking root at the back of his mind.

When Stan got home, he found Kyle asleep on the couch, surrounded by work papers. The curtains were still pulled wide and the room was awash with the last velvet light of sunset. Stan stared at the artfully-spread form of his best friend and despite himself, felt an undeniable throb of attraction in the pit of his stomach. He found himself drawn towards the sleeping body like a moth to a flame and, crouching silently beside the couch, Stan traced his gaze over the familiar, soothing curves of Kyle's features. He could have stared like that for hours, but now, with Wendy's words jumbling confusedly around his brain and, suddenly uncertain of what he might do, Stan laid a hand on Kyle's arm and said his name quietly. Kyle murmured incoherently in response, his eyelashes fluttering madly.

A tiny dimple appeared between Kyle's eyebrows as he frowned himself awake. Stan felt a smile smooth across his lips and then, again, that same kick of desire in his stomach as Kyle spread lithe fingers absently over Stan's hand on his arm

"Hey, dude," Stan whispered, positively aglow with affection. Kyle was a slow waker; his dreams took their time to give him up. The moment stretched and Stan was almost disappointed when, fully sentient once more, the redhead finally blinked the shrewdness back into his eyes. Kyle's hand fell away from Stan's with a speed that made Stan feel obliged to let go too.

"Stan. Sorry, dude, I..." Kyle trailed off, arching his spine in an easy stretch. "What do you want?"

The word 'you' fluttered unbidden to the tip of Stan's tongue and he had to consciously clamp down on it to prevent it from spilling out.

"Have you eaten?" he managed to say instead. Kyle groaned and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

"No," he muttered, his gaze drifting mournfully over the scattered papers, "I've been working like a bitch, dude."

"I was gonna order Chinese. You want some?" Stan said, and Kyle looked at him with a grateful smile.

"Aw, sweet. Yeah, that'd be awesome, man."

It was only when Stan was in the kitchen, digging the City Wok menu out of a drawer that the penny finally dropped. His stomach lurched so violently, that he had to grip the edge of the countertop to make sure he stayed on his feet. His mouth was dry and tasted bitter as, with slow horror, Stan realised that even all those years ago, Wendy had been absolutely right.

* * *

A/N: So, I was totally not happy with the last chapter. I dashed it out then posted it even though I knew I wasn't satisfied with it. I feel like this one is better. I hope you think so too - I've been wanting to write this part for a long time. ^^

And...time to get this whole triangle on the road!


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Yeah, okay, so Stan got his chance last chapter. This is aaallll about the K² because I freaking need it NOW. I've been rocking and trembling without my fix...

Um. Signs of OTP? Quite possibly.

I know this chapter is kind of short. The next one is shaping up to be longer but it wouldn't have made sense to put any of that stuff into this chapter. Hence, it is short.

* * *

That Saturday, while searching Kenny's duffel bag (which the jackass was still living out of despite Kyle's repeated offers of closet space) for a shirt that Kenny had stolen from him, Kyle came across the scuffed spiral-bound notebook which was quite literally the most precious thing that Kenny owned. Kyle and Kenny were past the point now where each others' secrets were sacred. It was a level of comfortable intimacy that Kyle was used to. He and Stan had been past the secrets point for years and while he was long bored of exercising his rights to Stan's privacy, each new thing that Kyle discovered about Kenny was a fresh revelation.

The notebook was crammed full of clippings from magazines, mysterious sketches of fragmented maps, and careful tracings of foreign words in alien lettering. Kenny's own spidery handwriting wove through the chaos like a trail of breadcrumbs: easy to follow if you knew how.

His shirt instantly forgotten, Kyle carried the notebook back to his bedroom, where Kenny was still sprawled across the bed. He sat up when he saw the book in Kyle's hand.

"Dude, where'd you find that?" Kenny asked, a little shiftily.

"Your bag," Kyle replied, sitting back down on the bed whose clutches he had just spent almost an hour extracting himself from, "You gonna tell me what it is?"

Kyle held the book cradled in one hand and turned the pages delicately. The thing practically radiated significance, like some prized historical artefact. Its immense importance to Kenny was obvious, no matter how dismissive he made his one-shouldered shrug.

"It's just...you know. Some shit I collected."

"Looks like it must have taken you years to collect," Kyle said. Kenny merely shrugged again in response and ran the tip of his tongue over his front teeth. Kyle turned the page and raised an eyebrow as an idyllic image of lush vegetation and crystal clear water caught his eye.

"What's this place?" he asked, pointing at the picture. Kenny shifted his weight forward to peer over Kyle's shoulder.

"That's Vanuatu. It's an island in the South Pacific." Kenny hesitated, then seemed to rethink his uncertainty. The tension in his features eased away and a light which Kyle had never seen before crept into his blue eyes. "They still believe in black magic there. How about that? A massive proportion of the island is Christian, because of the missionaries," he explained, "but instead of letting go of their old beliefs, they just kind of merged it all together, you know?"

Kenny's enthusiasm should have been contagious, but Kyle's gaze had left the picture and gotten stuck on Kenny's face.

"It looks amazing," he said.

"Yeah. It's kind of getting on the tourism radar right now, though, so give it a year or two and the whole place will probably have been developed to shit. You have to move fast if you want to see these places before they get completely tainted."

Kenny reached around Kyle to turn over the next treasured page. The brush of Kenny's skin against Kyle's bare arm made Kyle's flesh tingle and he couldn't help but lean further into the touch. He glanced sideways at Kenny's profile, utterly intrigued by the raging asexual passion in his eyes. Kenny was totally beautiful, Kyle thought. That was pretty much impossible to miss.

"It's like, a plan," Kenny said, interrupting Kyle's thoughts.

"Huh?"

"It's a plan for what I'd like to do one day when I have the money. As soon as I have enough, I'm gonna do it all."

Kyle wanted to care. He wanted to be interested, but that light in Kenny's eyes had him all distracted.

"Sounds awesome," Kyle breathed, which was really all he could manage before he had to enfold Kenny in his arms and try to suck some of that passion away into himself.

That moment was Kyle's first indication that he was in this way deeper than he could really handle. But, the true extent of his involvement only became apparent two days later, when Stan strode into the kitchen and announced, quite matter-of-factly,

"I'm off nights."

The glass Kyle was holding slipped from suddenly limp fingertips and shattered at his feet.

"Dude!" Stan exclaimed, staring at the glittering flecks dashed across the tiles.

"What?" Kyle croaked.

"What? You just fucking threw glass all over yourself, is what. Jesus Christ, dude."

Stan crouched down and began to gingerly gather the largest pieces of glass. "Did any of it hit you?" he asked, looking up in concern at Kyle's pale face.

"No, I meant, what- You...you're off nights?" Kyle stumbled out. Stan stood up again, jagged glass balanced atop one palm, and allowed his gaze to lock with Kyle's.

"Yeah, man. After tonight I'm switching shifts. Can't fucking wait. Can finally get back to reality, huh?"

Stan smiled sort of expectantly, but Kyle couldn't seem to make himself react.

"What's the matter, dude?" Stan asked then, fresh concern edging his voice. He reached his free hand out and curled it around his friend's shoulder, only to feel Kyle's muscle flinch almost imperceptibly beneath his palm. A sick sense of quasi-understanding crept slowly over Stan and settled uneasily in the pit of his stomach. He let go of Kyle's shoulder and watched as the redhead forced his lips into a smile which couldn't fool Stan for a second.

"Nothing," Kyle said, voice strained, "It will be good to have you back."

Stan could see plain as day that Kyle was lying through his teeth. He toyed with the idea of calling Kyle on it, but that same queasy half-certainty stopped him and Stan settled instead for mirroring Kyle's hard smile with one of his own. After wrapping the broken glass in newspaper and dropping it into the trash, Stan left for work. He would be early, but he simply didn't have the balls right now to confront what he thought he maybe knew.

Kyle stayed in the kitchen after Stan had left. He had no idea how long he stood there, mind blank, his weight balanced through his forearms and down to his hands, which were braced against the edge of the countertop. Kyle didn't even register the sound of the front door opening and closing once more or of soft footfalls against cold tile. He registered nothing at all until he felt Kenny's arms slide around his waist from behind and Kenny's lips whisper damp greetings against the side of his neck; it was only then that the life flowed suddenly back into Kyle's veins. He let his head loll listlessly backwards onto Kenny's shoulder and felt the corner of Kenny's trademark smirk curving against his cheek.

Kyle twisted in the safe circle of Kenny's arms, turning to face him and his inquisitively raised eyebrows.

"Stan's gonna quit working nights," Kyle said. Kenny inhaled sharply between his teeth with a gentle hiss, but other than that gave no sign of being worried. His smile dipped thoughtfully as he drew Kyle closer to him.

"Well, that's okay. We'll work it out," Kenny said, running possessive hands across Kyle's body: his cheeks, his hip bones, the junction between his neck and shoulder. The surety of Kenny's fingertips soothed away the anxiety and made Kyle tilt his head to catch Kenny's lips with his own.

It occurred to Kyle, as they made their distracted way to the comfort of his bedroom, that there was a reason why Kenny touched not people, but _Kyle_ like he owned him. It was because he did. And Kyle was powerless against it.

In spite of Kenny's confident words, the sex that night was messy and damn near hysterical, as if they were both deep down afraid that it would somehow be the last time. The sense of barely-contained hysteria was still rife as they lay tangled together afterwards, atop sweaty sheets.

"I've never tried slitting my wrists," Kenny mused, out of nowhere. He was studying the pale flesh of Kyle's inner arm, marvelling at the flimsy decoration of blue lines with which it was patterned. "Like, wouldn't that be really hard? Because you'd do one, but then...you know? Could you even get to the other one? I mean, you've only got two hands, right?" Kyle frowned, pulling his wrist away from Kenny's curious gaze and the fingernail which was tracing lightly over his vulnerable veins.

"Come on, Kenny. Don't talk to me about that shit," Kyle muttered, not bothering to hide his discomfort. After all these years and even, or perhaps especially, with the kind of intimacy he had been sharing with Kenny over the past few weeks, Kyle still could not force himself to confront Kenny's deaths head-on. They simply disrupted everything that Kyle knew to be true.

Kenny smiled. Kyle's expression was as transparent to him as always.

"It totally freaks you out. Doesn't it?"

"Yeah. No shit."

Kenny's smile stayed fixed, but something in his eyes shifted abruptly.

"Here," he said, catching hold of Kyle's hand and linking their fingers together. Kenny stretched his arm wide to reach the bedside cabinet and picked up the kitchen knife they had used to cut slices of pizza the day before. Kenny had been too good a distraction for Kyle to have bothered taking it back to the kitchen. Kenny pushed the handle of the knife into Kyle's palm, then pulled his own fingers free and closed them over Kyle's, pushing Kyle's hand into a fist around the handle. Kyle watched, uncertain.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Shut up," Kenny tossed back. Then, he guided the blade of the knife so that it hung ominously over his own chest. Kenny's free hand clamped securely around Kyle's wrist and his gleaming eyes bored straight into Kyle's.

"Do it," he whispered.

"What?" Kyle yelped in alarm. Kenny's stare did not waver.

"You've got to face your fears, Kyle. Do it."

"Are you shitting me? No fucking way!"

Kyle attempted to pull his wrist free but Kenny held him firm with a strength which could only be born from this temporary insanity.

"Why not?"

"Because! I'm not gonna kill you, dude!"

"I want you to," Kenny said, and as the words slipped from his lips, he realised how true they were. An intolerable, yet familiar sense of restlessness had been plaguing Kenny over the past few days. But, a combination of Kyle and death? That would be totally epic. It was just what he needed. An incontrollable desire for this to happen rose in Kenny's chest and his grip tightened painfully around Kyle's wrist.

"Jesus, Kenny. What the fuck?" Kyle murmured, not liking what he could see in Kenny's eyes.

"It'll just slip right between the ribs. Trust me. It will totally work. I've done it before."

"That's not the point."

"Aw, man, and I'd fucking love to see you explain this one to Stan," Kenny smirked.

"Kenny-"

"I'll come back."

"I don't care! I won't do it."

"Kyle..." Kenny said, his voice caressing the word softly, because it was really kind of endearing that Kyle still thought he had a choice about this. Kenny leant forwards and pressed his forehead against Kyle's, delighting in the intensity of the last moments, the steady throbbing of the pulse in Kyle's trapped wrist, the warm rhythm of Kyle's nervous breath. Kenny tilted his chin to flick the tip of his tongue teasingly against Kyle's lips in a perverted mockery of a farewell kiss. Then, with no further warning, he lunged himself forwards into the knife which he had locked into Kyle's hand.

An angry, vanquished 'No!' burst from Kyle's lips before he could stop it, but the word was swallowed, unheeded, by the thick rush of breath from Kenny's mouth. Kyle clutched at Kenny then, and held him, watching his blue eyes slowly glaze and a thin trickle of blood creep from between his still-smirking lips.

It wasn't until Kenny's lifeless fingers dropped from his wrist that Kyle was able to move again. He let Kenny's body fall away from him. They were both covered in Kenny's blood.

"You bastard," Kyle muttered, bitterly, and felt the tears burning at the corners of his eyes.

* * * *

When Stan arrived home with the clear light of dawn, he found Kyle tucking clean sheets around the mattress of the sofa-bed with obsessive precision. There was a conspicuous pile of Kyle's most essential belongings on the coffee table: work shoes, laptop, comb.

"Hey, dude," Stan said, frowning, "What are you doing?"

"Kenny's dead," Kyle replied, tugging at the sheet aggressively. Stan couldn't ignore the sense of déjà vu.

"But-"

"In my room."

"What?"

"Kenny is dead in my room. It's sick. I'm not going in there."

There was a weird tremor in Kyle's voice and he wouldn't meet Stan's eyes.

Death had little effect on Stan now, especially Kenny's, so he went straight to Kyle's room to check it out.

He wished he hadn't. Kenny's corpse wasn't just in Kyle's room; it was in Kyle's bed. Even worse, the blonde's willowy body was clad in nothing but Kyle's blood-soaked sheet. Stan pulled the door shut and silently hoped that the fires of hell were burning extra hot that day. Then, in the safety of the bathroom, Stan puked his guts out at nothing but the sight of blood for the first time since he was twelve.

* * *

A/N: I am having a complete crisis of faith. The K² blatantly owns this story. I now am lost and confused because I'm not sure that I want to take the plot where I had originally intended to take it. And wherever it ends up going, I feel that I will be pained by it.

Hot damn. Seems like all bets are now officially off...


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: We are continuing according to plan. Almost.

But, holy crap, this chapter has given me a run for my money. It has refused to co-operate every single step of the way...

For everyone who has taken the time to review, particularly the wonderful acidspin, who wrote me a review the length of my arm and who I then accidentally lied to about when this chapter would be posted (I swear I didn't think it was going to fight back the way it did!).

* * *

Eric Cartman liked to think that he was a simple man, of simple pleasures. He enjoyed good food, quality liquor, and well-written accounts of history's great events. He busted his ass around the clock to maintain the supremacy he had already achieved and his rare work-free evenings were deservedly spent wrapped in his burgundy dressing gown, with a softly clinking scotch on the rocks cradled in one hand and his tired feet propped up in front of a juicy documentary on the History Channel. The very last thing that Cartman wanted on an evening off was to be forced, by incessant doorbell-ringing, to open his door to a spazzed-out wannabe vegan with a lame haircut and more vagina than dick.

"What the fuck? Shouldn't you be offering hand-jobs to the sick right about now?" Cartman snapped, because seriously, he had much better things to do tonight than anything that involved Stan Marsh. Cartman scowled at the stiff, glove-less hand which gripped at the doorframe; if he wanted to slam the door in this hippy's face, he was probably going to have to sacrifice some of Stan's fingers. That dilemma was being weighed up with serious consideration when Stan blurted something which he would never know had saved him half a hand.

"I think I want to sleep with Kyle," Stan said in a voice like broken glass, and for a brief moment, Cartman could do nothing but stare.

The whole beauty of verbal bullying was that it took smarts to do it properly. The most effective course of action was to identify something that was true but largely unacknowledged, and then latch onto it, worrying at it mercilessly until the victim cracked and ran screaming through the streets like madman. It was not just coincidence that gay jokes had always been Cartman's weapon of choice when it came to Stan. Fucking _obviously _the pussy had an enormous boner for his 'super-best friend'. Their faggy terminology was only the tip of the giant, fudge-packing iceberg. Kyle and Stan wanted to sex each other up good. They had done since back in third grade, when they hadn't even known what the hell sex was. It was fucking sickening.

So freaking _yeah_, of course Cartman knew that. It was totally unfortunate for Stan that he hadn't worked it out way back in high school when Kyle had been ready to Juliet himself all over the hallway if only that would have gotten Stan's attention, but Cartman had figured that it was only a matter of time before the first shreds of awareness eventually filtered through the tender walls of Stan's tiny, tree-hugging brain. Naturally, that was destined to be at a point way too late, when the Jew had more than moved on and totally hardened his black little heart to those impure thoughts about his super-best. Life sucked ass like that, no matter how virtuous you were.

Cartman knew all of this. But, what he honestly hadn't seen coming was South Park's most whore-tastic piece of trailer-trash slipping under the radar and beating Stan to the punch. It didn't matter what Kenny said. Cartman was smarter than that. He knew what he'd seen pass between those two in the apartment and didn't believe Kenny's lies for a second. Poor people couldn't lie for shit. It was why they never got anywhere in life. Kenny didn't just want Kyle; he'd already been there and done him, probably repeatedly. In other words, Stan was fucked, which was really kind of sad for him.

Cartman didn't give a shit. Of course he didn't.

Except that...really, he nearly, almost, sort of liked Stan. He'd been the best of the shit-poor bunch of retards and queermos who had plagued Cartman at school and Cartman had always thought that it was more than pathetic that Stan had chosen the filthy Jew to project his super-repressed ass-ramming tendencies onto. Kyle liking Stan and not getting a damn thing out of it had been a fucking riot, but that shit going the other way? Something was very wrong in the world if that was the case. Of all the people on this Earth, Cartman could perhaps tolerate Stan Marsh the most, and Stan did not deserve to come out of this messed-up queer-fest worse off than the Jew and the homeless-junkie-in-training. Cartman couldn't believe that God would allow such a travesty.

Those guys were all Cartman's bitches, and whether they knew it or not, the douche-bags would be totally freaking lost without him. As such, Cartman had always felt a certain responsibility for them. He was not going to sit back now and watch them drive each other to self-destruction. There was nothing for it. He was going to have to get involved. So, he looked Stan in the eyes, swallowed down the words 'Kenny is pounding your Jew's ass! Go beat the shit out of him' and faked the most sympathetic sigh he was capable of.

"Wow, Stan. I don't know what to say. You'd better come in."

Cartman laid a fatherly arm across Stan's shoulders and guided him into the house, kicking the door shut behind them with one slippered heel.

"I've gotta say, this is a shock to me," Cartman said, leading Stan over to the couch, "You damn near knocked me on my ass with that."

Stan was distracted as fuck, dragging his hands through his already screwed-up hair and making these gross little gagging noises. Cartman swore to God that if this bitch puked up on his carpet, it would be the last the world saw of Stanley Marsh.

"I know," Stan said "I'm sorry. But, dude. I am _freaking out."_

"No shit."

"I don't even know why I'm here, but I had no idea where else to go. I mean, I lost the paper with Wendy's number, like, the second she gave it to me and fuck knows _where_ her cousin lives. And, Jesus Christ, dude, I couldn't stay in the apartment with Kyle. He thinks I'm at City Wok," Stan dashed out in one big, garbled mess of verbal barf.

"Sit down, Stan," Cartman said slowly, after a pause, because apparently this was going to be messier than he had thought. "Let me fix you a drink."

The calm authority in Cartman's voice was all Stan needed. He sank onto the couch with grateful obedience and let his head fall heavily into his hands. Cartman poured Stan a double, then on reflection, added an extra shot for luck. He passed the glass into Stan's quaking fingers and stood over him, watching as Stan drained the scotch like a seasoned pro before muttering his thanks. Cartman lowered himself carefully down onto the couch beside Stan.

"There you go," he said, in his most comforting voice. "You shouldn't feel bad, Stan. Jews are sneaky, manipulative rats. This is totally not your fault."

Stan didn't appear to take comfort in this. He looked at Cartman with the sad, guileless eyes of a cow.

"What do you think I should do?" he asked.

"Well. If you want to bang him, I wouldn't worry about telling him that, dude," Cartman said, without preamble. "I mean, Kyle's pretty gay anyway, it's not like he's gonna beat you up for being a fag. And if he tries, you know, you're bigger than him. You could fucking smack the crap out of him."

Stan sifted with practised ease through the biased excess that spilled from Cartman's mouth and pulled from it the gleaming fragments of sense.

"You think I should tell him," Stan reiterated, just to check.

"Yeah. You guys have been, like, married since you were five. I'm sure it'll all work out for you and you'll be pounding ass in no time," Cartman said, not bothering to suppress a shudder at the mental image that those words evoked.

Overconfident and businesslike as ever, Cartman made it sound like a done deal. But things just weren't that simple, because this was_ Kyle_ and sexual feelings towards Kyle felt fucking wrong. Stan might as well have been having the same kind of feelings about Shelley. That was the level of perversion he was looking at here. Kyle was the super-best. He was supposed to be protected from this shit by some kind of impenetrable fraternal bubble. Instead, Stan had to face the concept that all those years of friendship might actually have been based on this. Tremulous, quicksandy _this_. What if Kyle's green eyes weren't the source of comfort that Stan had always seen them as but were in fact just vehicles for his own twisted fantasies? What if he didn't_ admire _Kyle's spirit as he had always thought, but had subconsciously decided that it would translate well into the bedroom? Thinking about Kyle that way felt damn near abusive.

This all made sense in Stan's head, but when he tried to translate the feelings into words, Cartman just stared at him in alarm.

"Holy crap, dude," he said, eyes popping, "What the hell did you do to him?"

"Jesus Christ. I didn't say I like, literally abused him. I meant more, like, an abuse of trust."

"Those are words they use about paedophiles, Stan. Start talking more sense," Cartman snapped with characteristic lack of patience.

"I _mean_, what if I don't love Kyle for _Kyle_, but only for what I might be able to take from him? If that's the case, then the super-bests are on their way _out_, dude. I don't think I could handle that."

Cartman was quiet for a long time. Then, he sighed heavily and leaned his weight back into the couch cushions, eyebrows lowered thoughtfully.

"Huh. This is pretty fucked up, right here," Cartman said eventually, which was the one thing that Stan knew already. "Seriously though, dude," he added, "Tell him. It's the only thing you can do."

Cartman was right, of course. The only way for Stan to find out was to tell Kyle how he felt. And he was going to tell Kyle. He was. But then two days later, while Stan was still waiting for the right moment, Kenny was dead in Kyle's bed and suddenly things were a whole lot more complicated.

* * * *

Kenny was still dead when the housewarming for Cartman's new apartment in Denver rolled around. Kyle almost didn't go because things with Stan had been totally weird for the past couple of days and the thought of sitting in the confined space of a car with him all the way to Denver was kind of too much to stomach. Besides, this was a party all about _Cartman_, and who the hell wanted to be a part of celebrating that asshole?

Stan had been all evasive and pointedly understated when Kyle had told him he wasn't coming.

"Okay, dude. That's cool. Do whatever you want," Stan had said, with a blasé shrug of his shoulders and the same eye contact avoidance game he'd been playing for days.

"I will," Kyle had returned and had been so caught up in being equally blasé that he had collected together the work papers which were strewn across the coffee table and started down the hall to his room before he had quite realised what he was doing.

Just one glance at his firmly closed bedroom door had been enough to change Kyle's mind about the party, which was unfortunate, because it was a shitty party and Kyle had a shitty time there.

Stan was still treating him as if he had broken some unwritten law of super-besthood and deserved to be punished for the indiscretion. The behaviour was totally unreasonable, so Kyle wasn't going to stoop to asking Stan what he was supposed to have done. Instead, he allowed the smouldering sense of injustice to mingle with the feelings of betrayal and loss which were already blazing in his chest courtesy of Kenny's latest stunt. And, because things weren't already bad enough, an hour into the party, Cartman decided to take advantage of Kyle's friendless state to sidle up to him and start poking his bigoted nose where he knew it didn't belong.

"You and the Marsh are like, totally avoiding each other tonight. What's the matter?" Cartman sneered, "Lover's tiff?"

The words sent a raw, lust-haloed image of Kenny rocketing into Kyle's mind.

"Fuck you, dickwad," Kyle snapped, elbowing his way spitefully past Cartman, who raised an interested eyebrow.

It was way too early in the conversation for that level of venom to be in Kyle's voice. It normally took more work than that. Unless, Cartman thought, he had struck a nerve. Unless...

Kenny's conspicuous absence from the party snickered at Cartman from all sides.

"Holy shit," he muttered to himself, before lunging forwards, seizing Kyle by his unsuspecting shoulders and using his substantial weight advantage to drag the redhead out the open door and into the yard. Once he'd regained his momentum, Kyle jerked away from Cartman's grasp, hissing and spitting like a cat.

"Get off of me! What the fuck?!"

Cartman rolled his eyes. Kyle's histrionics were so old by now. Cartman had always allowed Kyle to remain in his gang because he seriously was about the only other person in South Park who could maintain intelligent conversation. Kyle alone understood when Cartman used phrases like 'gross profit margins' or 'proportional representation' and thus, the Jew was a necessary source of intellectual stimulation. When Cartman was in the mood, Kyle wasn't on his period and no-one else was there to see, they actually got along pretty well. Unfortunately, because it also totally got Cartman's non-sexual rocks off to watch Kyle lose it, their getting along was kind of sporadic. Tonight was certainly making no promises.

"What happened to poor-boy? I'm really missing seeing his baby blues around the place tonight, aren't you Kyle?" Cartman asked, lacing his voice with just enough smug understanding for Kyle to be able to work it out. Despite his noble agenda, Cartman couldn't help delighting in the way that Kyle's eyes widened in horror before narrowing abruptly into predatory slits.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Kyle growled.

"Ah. But see, that's the thing, Kyle. I totally _do_ know what I'm talking about. And, you know, I'm really only bringing this up now because I'm concerned for you."

"Oh, fucking spare me," Kyle murmured, raising his eyes heavenward.

"No, no, really, Kyle. I am honestly concerned. You shouldn't be touching dicks with white trash like Kenny, dude. You don't fucking know where he's been. You'll probably catch something." Cartman said carelessly, partly to confirm what he already knew, but partly for the reaction. He wasn't disappointed. Sure enough, Kyle snapped and flew at him so furiously that Cartman had to catch hold of Kyle's wrists to avoid getting a black eye. He waited until a fraction of the fight had ebbed out of Kyle's muscles before he released him and pushed the redhead back to a safer distance. He held Kyle back with a warning stare.

"Easy, Jew. Touch me again and I'll scream rape."

"Don't fucking _speak _about him like that. You don't even know him," Kyle spat, enraged, because neither had Kyle, before all of this shit.

Cartman observed the angry flush making Kyle's pale cheeks look almost alive, the steely clenching of Kyle's teeth, and realised that this was a hell of a lot more serious than he had thought. The whole situation was about to veer off the rails. He switched tactics with disarming speed, dredging up the kind of open sincerity that Kyle always fell for.

"Kyle. Listen to me," he said, holding up placating hands, "Kenny's crazy. He will wait until you least suspect it and then he will rip you to shreds and leave you for dead. I've seen him do it a hundred times before. You're just a stopgap, dude."

"A stopgap?" Kyle shot back quickly, eyes alert.

"That's what I said. A stopgap."

"A stopgap between what and what?"

"Holy crap, how the hell should I know? Between Kenny and the fucking rest of the world?"

"Bullshit. What does that even mean?"

"It _means, _fucking forget about Kenny already before he drags both you and Stan down into the depths of his depravity."

"Stan? Stan doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Goddamnit!" Cartman burst with genuine frustration, "Stan is in love with you, you stupid Jew!"

Kyle looked through the window into the kitchen's warm glow, picking out Stan's familiar face, and realised that, deep down, he had known that for years.

"Whatever, Cartman. Leave me alone. I'm out of this shit," he muttered before marching determinedly back inside the house, and doing the only thing he could think of to do in a situation like this: get wasted.

Five glasses of wine later, all downed in quick succession and Kyle was leaning against the wall in the hallway, his head spinning. His thoughts assaulted him with a frankness they wouldn't dare assume during his sober hours. He was angry, blindingly so; at Cartman for presuming too much, at Stan for not being straight and married off by now, but most of all, he was angry at Kenny, for not being here, for the ease with which he had deleted himself from Kyle's life and for the gaping hole his absence had left.

The alcohol was still thudding in Kyle's blood when he heard his name, wrapped in Stan's warm voice. He turned his head listlessly towards the sound and saw Stan standing uncertainly outside the kitchen door, squinting down the dim hallway at Kyle's silhouette.

"Dude? Are you alright?" Stan asked, his concern undisguised.

Kyle stretched one arm out along the wall in response, spreading his fingers in Stan's direction.

"Come here," he murmured and Stan did so instantly, summoned by Kyle's words without a second thought.

"What?"

Kyle twisted his wrist against the wall, fingers flexing absently over the smooth gloss of the paint. Kyle watched with interest as Stan's gaze followed the motions of his hand before trailing along the length of Kyle's arm and roaming over his body. The telltale dilation of Stan's pupils and the quiet hitch of his breath were almost enough to drive Kenny's clamouring presence from Kyle's chest and so, fuelled by the hedonistic charm which Kenny had left clinging to his skin, an idea to make himself feel better slid easily into Kyle's head.

"Why are you ignoring me?" he asked, letting the flirt creep gradually into his voice. The words made Stan's gaze snap back up to Kyle's face.

"I- What? I'm not ignoring you."

"You are."

Kyle stepped forwards under the pretence of needing to lean his weight against the firm muscle of Stan's shoulder to maintain his balance. Stan's hands darted automatically to Kyle's waist to support his friend's intoxicated body and Kyle couldn't help but marvel at the way that every ounce of Stan's consciousness seemed so sharply focused upon him. Almost overwhelmed by the power he knew he could wield over his super-best, Kyle leant forward the extra inch and pressed to Stan's lips the first kiss which had been chasing the two of them all their lives.

Stan didn't respond right away. In fact, Stan didn't respond at all and even the insane amounts of alcohol in Kyle's blood couldn't disguise the lifelessness of Stan's lips beneath his own. The contrast to the velvet motions of Kenny's mouth was so extreme that Kyle thought he had somehow missed something. Only when he broke the connection, stepped back and really looked at Stan did he realise that Stan hadn't reacted because he was trying not to. Stan's deep blue eyes were squeezed shut and his sculpted all-American jaw was clenched tight. Kyle watched in amazement as Stan mastered whatever emotions he was battling with a level of stoicism that Kyle could only dream of.

"Kyle. You're really drunk," Stan said quietly. When he opened his eyes, their gaze was calm and accommodating, but there was a feathery tremor in his voice which made Kyle feel sick with guilt. He let go of Stan's shoulder, stepped free of Stan's hands and bowed his head in deference.

"Yeah," Kyle breathed, barely recognising his own voice, "You're right."

"Go find your coat. I'll take you home."

Kyle swallowed. Stan's clinical, matter-of-fact tone cut to the bone and brought sobriety crashing down on him like a tonne of bricks. The life was ebbing out of Stan's eyes by the second and it was so much worse than watching Kenny die, because there was no assurance that Stan would be coming back. Kyle wanted to catch whatever was escaping in his hands and press it back into Stan's chest, to stem the flow and undo making Stan look that way. But he had no idea how, so did the only thing he could do to make this easier and followed Stan's instructions to the letter, while the long drive home from Denver stretched ahead of them, cold and silent.

* * *

A/N: Sheesh. That was a BATTLE. I am used to writing scripts and poetry. Prose feels like such an unnatural medium to me! Please excuse the clunkiness of this chapter. I plead ineptitude... ^^;

I'm uncertain what's going to happen in the next chapter. I mean, I kind of know, but it could go two ways...high drama and a splash of more hardcore Style...or tense and understated and full of British reserve. I don't know which to go with.

Good Lord. I am beginning to feel that I am in way over my head here... *cold sweat*


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I won't let the prose beat me. I can totally take it. Bring it on, prose, just bring it. Make my day.

Also: Seriously, I don't know why I've just left Kenny's body in the apartment. It's gross. I'm sorry. But I'd killed him there before I realised that...there he would have to stay until he comes back to life. My bad?

(Except I'm only partly sorry because I secretly think it works quite well like this. Because I am twisted. I AM, though, genuinely sorry that you all have to be subjected to it. Maybe bail on this fic? I'd bail. I won't be offended if you do.)

**WARNING** There's some fairly graphic blood and accidental suicide-related injury here. It's nothing too horrific, but if you are inclined to be unsettled by that kind of thing, please do be aware of it.

* * *

Kenny had been dead for seventy-two hours and counting and Kyle was going out of his mind.

Kyle liked to feel in control of things. Being in control was what he was used to. He had pretty much come to terms with the fact that there was absolutely no controlling Kenny, but this? This was Kenny controlling _him_, and Kyle seriously was not on board with that shit. Dead and holding hostage the only personal space that Kyle had in the apartment, Kenny was so much more powerful than he had ever been whilst breathing. His voice seemed to have infected Kyle's mind and the ghost of his touch prickled over Kyle's skin at the slightest provocation. It was damn near driving Kyle to distraction. He couldn't focus on his work; he would sit at his desk, staring through papers while barely registering the ringing of his phone.

At night Kyle dreamt of Kenny kneeling astride his quivering, breathless body, of Kenny smiling his glittering smile and saying, "I totally own you, dude," with infuriating smugness. And then leaning closer, though never quite close enough, drawling, "But darlin', you ain't got no part of me."

Essentially, Kenny was flipping him off from beyond the grave and that made Kyle so livid that he wanted to flush Kenny's stupid travel notebook down the toilet. He wanted to get Kenny back and get him back where it hurt.

Worse still, beneath that anger was concern for Kenny's hell-ravaged soul, so strong that it made Kyle weak at the knees. Every time there was an unidentified noise in the apartment, Kyle found himself tensing and his attention shooting towards the hall which led to his room. Kyle had long ago decided that someday, sometime, Kenny's death would have to stick and he could not escape the paranoid fear that this time might just be it.

Kyle felt completely alone. Stan was there, of course, but things with Stan had been super awkward since Cartman's party and Kyle's embarrassing drunken escapades. Stan was being totally chivalrous and hadn't said a word to Kyle about it. He seemed comfortable enough to play along with Kyle's pretence that the whole mortifying incident had never happened and for that at least, Kyle was grateful.

To fill the space, they had the strange, stilted conversations of a sham-friendship. Like:

"Do you think we should get a pet?" Stan had asked, the evening after the party. He and Kyle were sat at opposite ends of the sofa, neither of them watching the TV show that flickered before them. Kyle blinked away the feeling of Kenny's fingertips trailing over his collarbone and looked at Stan in bewilderment.

"A pet?"

"Yeah," Stan said, looking just as bewildered as Kyle, "You know. Like a...pet."

A silence paused between them. Eventually, Kyle said slowly,

"No, Stan. I don't think we should get a pet."

"Oh."

"We can't, anyway," Kyle offered, trying to soften his voice without making it so soft that it could be in any way construed as suggestive, "I don't think the building allows them."

But, playing dumb could only carry them so far, especially since Kyle kept catching Stan staring at him in a certain way; a way that made Kyle's nerves crackle. And, of course, there was the small matter of Kenny's body rotting quietly in Kyle's room. Stan knew it was there, Kyle was certain of that, and by now Stan also had surely figured out _why _it was there. He must have worked it out. And yet still, Stan stared. It was a dangerous situation. Kyle veered so wildly between gag-inducing fear for Kenny's safety and a rabid thirst for retribution that he felt quite on edge and had no idea what he might do. While Stan kept looking at him with that un-Stan-like hunger in his eyes, and Kyle's own need for revenge kept coming in waves, it seemed only a matter of time before the two collided explosively. If that happened, Kyle wasn't sure what kind of pieces would be left to pick up at the end.

It came to a head that evening when he and Stan were standing in the kitchen, backs to one another, prepping for dinner. Stan had found a fajita kit in a packet at the back of a cupboard and had decided it was a manageable alternative to takeout or frozen pizza. Kyle had agreed, because the mild entertainment of chopping bell peppers had to be better than sitting on the couch just feet away from his bedroom. Waiting.

Stan was holding an onion in one hand and rattling around in drawers with the other.

"Dude, do you know what happened to the big kitchen knife? I haven't seen it in, like, three days," he said. Kyle's chopping stilled.

"Kyle?" Stan prompted glancing over his shoulder at the back of Kyle's head. Kyle was trying to force his face into a neutral enough expression to respond when the light bulb above their heads blew out and plunged the room into darkness.

"Goddamnit," Kyle heard Stan complain through the dark, "That's like, the fourth bulb since we moved into this fucking place." Kyle laid his knife down quietly and turned to watch Stan's shadow blunder alongside the counter and reach up to the last cupboard on the left, where the new bulbs were kept.

"Did you buy more?" Kyle asked, finally trusting his voice to be steady.

"No, dude. Did you?"

"No."

Stan's sarcastic, "Awesome," was cut short abruptly by a bark of triumph.

"Aw, yeah! Last one, man." Stan turned. His grin, faintly white in the gloom, stepped towards Kyle and then tilted upwards as Stan searched out his bearings beneath the light.

Stan stretched his body, cobra-smooth, towards the ceiling. With darkness closing in around him, Kyle half-saw, half-imagined the sleek flex of Stan's cultivated muscle; half-heard the soft rustle of Stan's shirt as it rode up over his stomach. And all of a sudden, in the half-light of the kitchen, there was Kyle's opportunity for revenge, handed to him on a plate.

When Stan fumbled the onion that he had inexplicably held onto and dropped it with a breathy curse, Kyle snatched at the opportunity to turn away and avert disaster. Over the sudden static in his mind Kyle had caught the echo as the onion rolled straight into the gap between the refrigerator and the kitchen cabinet, ricocheting left and right, intent on burying itself deep in the tiny cavern where it could silently and pungently decompose.

"I got it," Kyle said, falling to his knees and feeling for the gap, fingers clumsy in the dark. He didn't feel it at first and reached further until his fingertips brushed against the onion's crackly skin. The span of bones in his wrist and at the base of his palm was barely accommodated by the narrow gap. There certainly wasn't enough space to close his hand around the onion, so Kyle drew his hand out, twisted his arm sideways and plunged it back in with sufficient force to ensure success.

Kyle never reached the onion. A sharp bite of pain in his wrist stopped him short.

Confused and wincing, Kyle drew his hand slowly back out of the gap. He gingerly explored the pain with the fingertips of his other hand and felt something cold and slick embedded lengthways in the flesh of his wrist. Kyle set his teeth against his bottom lip and with a gentle pull he eased the offending object out, swallowing down a fresh hiss of pain.

"Goddamn this thing will not..._fucking fit_," Kyle heard Stan say through gritted teeth from behind him.

It was a large shard of glass, Kyle decided. From the glass he had smashed seventy-two hours ago. Kyle's lip curled in distaste as he felt the sinister leak of the blood that oozed from the wound. He was squinting in the dark to assess the damage when glaring light flooded the kitchen and suddenly Kyle could no longer breathe. His blood, bright as Kenny's, was everywhere.

While Kyle was gazing in concentrated horror at the blood spewing from his wrist, Stan squinted up at the light with pride.

"There. Who says I suck ass at maintenance now, huh?"

"I slit my wrist," Kyle said, stunned.

"What?" Stan peered over his friend's shoulder, thrown by the non-sequitur. The splash of red he saw shocked him to his knees beside Kyle.

"Jesus, Kyle. What did you do?" he demanded.

"Fucking suicided myself, dude," Kyle croaked. There was a hysterical edge to the words.

Stan took one professional look at the wound before catching the back of Kyle's arm, which was already slick with blood, and holding it elevated.

"Don't be a retard. It's nothing," Stan said with easy cool, while his mind screamed the words 'radial artery' on a shrill loop of alarm. He pulled the very shirt off of his back, wrapped it around the gaping cut and tugged the rough cotton bruisingly tight to ease the flow.

Kyle gasped a belated, "Ow," and Stan's blue gaze locked seriously with his.

"It's okay," Stan told him, to which Kyle nodded, not doubting it.

The blood was already starting to seep through the fabric of the shirt. Stan swore inside his head and began to unwrap the makeshift bandage.

"Don't look," Stan warned, turning Kyle's face away with a gentle palm against his cheek, "You'll feel worse if you do."

"Okay," Kyle murmured, stunned into passivity. He leant his uninjured arm out behind him to support his suddenly lolling weight. Stan glanced at him in concern.

"You alright?"

"Yeah. I just feel kind of..." Kyle said and found that his voice came out slurred and whispery.

"Faint?" Stan offered, watching the uneasy flutter of Kyle's eyelids against the growing pallor of his cheek. The nod of Kyle's head was sluggish. "Aw, come on, dude. Don't be a pussy. You're not going to faint from something like this," Stan said, though he knew that Kyle had probably lost more than enough blood to be unconscious already, "Stay with it, man."

Kyle mumbled incoherently in response, but by then, Stan had already secured the bandage and now stood, lifting his friend's body up with him.

"I'm taking you to get stitches, dude. You'll be fine," he said and felt one lean arm snake around his neck before Kyle's weight went limp in his arms.

* * * * * *

The hospital was too quiet off shift. The waiting room was devoid of the usual bustle of the ER. The lights were glaringly bright and colder than the ice which coated the world outside. It was a hideous place to wait.

When Stan had arrived, Kyle's unconscious body cradled against him, the staff on shift hadn't quite known what to make of it. Andrew, the only other male nurse on the team, Stan's mentor and closest work ally, had approached him first.

"Marsh. Christ. What are you doing now? Just picking them up off the street?" he'd asked with an edgy smile, as yet unsure what to make of the bloodstains on Stan's hands.

Stan's fingers had tightened against Kyle's sweater as he shook his head.

"He's my best friend," Stan had said plainly, the gravity in his voice banishing the uncertain smile from Andrew's face. Andrew had taken Kyle from Stan's arms, almost reverently, whilst making the same soothing noises and confident eye contact that he had once upon a time taught Stan himself to make. Andrew was 'managing' him, Stan had registered distantly.

"We'll take care of it," Andrew had told him and Stan had instantly become kind of redundant.

As Stan sat in the waiting room, being redundant, a memory had surfaced in his mind of Kyle recently returning home pissed off about still having to wait for his health insurance forms to be cleared with the law firm.

"Seriously, Stan, how hard a job can filing be? Where do they _find_ these retarded admins?" he recalled Kyle saying irritably.

A lack of valid insurance wouldn't have been a problem in itself, except that when Stan had felt his pockets for his wallet, he had discovered that there was nothing to feel; his wallet was still lying on the coffee table in the apartment, right next to Kyle's. In his hurry to get Kyle to the hospital Stan had not even thought to pick it up.

Rather than leave Hell's Pass to get it, Stan had called Cartman. Because whatever else he was, Cartman was a man who fixed things and Stan needed something solid to cling to. He practically pissed his pants with relief when he saw Cartman's robust figure striding briskly towards him, the tread of Cartman's Italian loafers clicking expensively against the reflective surface of the hospital floor. Unexpectedly, there was a woman at his side. Stan didn't miss their entwined fingers even though Cartman extricated his from hers the second he caught sight of Stan. Stan stood up to meet them and accepted the firm handshake that Cartman offered him.

"Goddamnit, hippy," was the greeting that accompanied the handshake, "How many more of my evenings are you going to ruin?"

"Thanks for coming, man," Stan said, cancelling out Cartman's irritation with gratitude and smiling apologetically at the woman standing at Cartman's shoulder. Lord only knew what Stan had just interrupted.

Cartman's mystery woman was called Lucinda. Stan had spent hours talking to her at the housewarming when he had been trying to distract himself from watching his super-best from across the room. Lucinda was red-haired like Kyle, which made Stan kind of suspicious, and her eyes had the intelligent sparkle of Wendy's, which made Stan even more suspicious. But, she had a pretty face, deliciously voluptuous curves and she spoke to Cartman without so much as a shred of fear.

"I hope I didn't..." Stan began, nodding his head significantly in Lucinda's direction.

"'Ey! We were having dinner at my Mom's, you fucking perv," Cartman snapped, then turned away before Stan could apologise. "Luce," he crooned, voice sickly sweet, "Why don't you go find us a table in the cafe while I talk to my friend?"

Cartman pulled the fat wedge of his wallet from his pocket and held it out enticingly. Lucinda dismissed it with a glance.

"And miss the drama? You drag me all the way down here in the cold and now you expect me to just go sit out the good stuff?"

"Goddamnit, Luce! Go wait in the cafe," Cartman barked, brandishing the wallet like a weapon. Lucinda's mouth tightened into a rebellious line, but her gaze shifted fleetingly to Stan's tired face and whatever she saw there made her concede defeat.

"Fine," she muttered, snatching the wallet from Cartman's hand, "but I'm taking this baby to the gift shop first."

"Fuck you, bitch."

"Fuck you back," Lucinda returned easily. "Nice to see you again, Stan," she smiled, then nudged Cartman's hand affectionately with one finger and carried off her spoils.

Cartman stared after her. When he turned back to Stan, any trace of the hypothetical adoring expression had already been wiped clean. Cartman folded solid arms across his broad chest.

"So. The Jew tried to off himself," he said. Stan shook his head.

"It was an accident," he corrected. Cartman merely grunted in response.

The silence of the deserted waiting room rang around them. A sickly white light flickered in the corner. Stan had not spoken to Cartman about finding Kenny's body, because, after all, he had no real proof of what the whole thing meant. The potential scenarios were kind of limited, though, especially when you looked at it not as an isolated incident, but as one piece of a puzzle which had been steadily growing since the day that Stan had brought Kenny in from the cold. The unconfirmed secret had been eating away at his insides now for days, and since the kiss at the party, the thoughts which rolled through Stan's distracted mind had taken on an intensity that he wasn't sure he was comfortable with.

Stan imagined seizing Kyle by the shoulders, shoving him roughly back against the wall and shouting in his face, "How could you, what do you see in him?" He imagined the feel of the fragile bones beneath his hands, the shocked parting of Kyle's lips. Then, Stan thought of kissing him, fierce enough to make Kyle boneless in his arms. Of whispering, hot, against the velvet shell of Kyle's ear, "I dare you to think about him now."

But Stan couldn't do it. Not because he was a coward, but because Kyle was just too precious to him for it to be worth the risk.

"Listen. Cartman," Stan began, fully intending to make the most of the privacy the deserted waiting room afforded, "This might sound crazy, but I think _something_ might be going on between Kyle and Kenny." Cartman stared at him.

"What kind of something?" Cartman asked carefully and Stan stumbled through words in his mind, trying to decide how best to phrase it.

He never got the chance to use any of them, though, because over Cartman's shoulder, he had seen Kyle approaching. His face was still too pale and his wrist was conspicuously wrapped in gauze, but he was whole and he was safe.

"Dude!" Stan exclaimed, rushing to him.

"Why is the fatass here?" were the first words out of Kyle's mouth as he allowed Stan to usher him towards a plastic chair and coax him into sitting.

"I'm here to pay your goddamn medical bill, you ungrateful asswipe," Cartman snapped at him sternly. When Kyle looked horrified askance at Stan, Stan could only shrug.

"You'll pay him back," Stan said, by way of apology.

"Damn fucking right you will," Cartman agreed, unable to conceal his secret glee at having a Jew indebted to him. Kyle obviously didn't have the strength to fight back. He breathed a heavy sigh and looked wearily up at Stan with shadowed eyes.

"The doctor wants to speak to you," he said. Stan frowned and paused halfway to sitting down beside Kyle.

"What the hell for?"

"I think he wants to question you about the state of my mental health."

"God-fucking-damn," Stan muttered, straightening again.

"While you're at it, go get me whatever crap I need to sign," Cartman said, stepping into Stan's place and lowering himself into the flimsy plastic seat in his stead.

"I'll be back," Stan promised, eyes on Kyle.

"Of course. I'm sure they won't eat you," Kyle replied wryly because he was unwilling to acknowledge the childish sinking of his heart as he watched his super-best turn his back on him and walk away. Kyle hated hospitals. They made him feel small and vulnerable. Having a whale like Cartman taking up the whole armrest next to him was certainly not helping that condition. The fat-ass stretched his legs out in front of him and laced his fingers together in his lap.

"Kyle, Kyle..." he said with fake geniality, his nasal voice caressing the name in a way that made it sound repulsive.

"What, dickhead?" Kyle replied. He hated hearing his name like that. Cartman gestured to the wounded wrist that Kyle was cradling against his chest.

"You really thought Kenny was worth that shit?" he asked, his expression mocking and inflammatory. Kyle chose not to dignify the question with an answer.

"You are such a jackass," he said, with a disgusted shake of his head. "I can't even believe how much of a jackass you are. Why are you even here, Cartman?" Cartman raised an eyebrow.

"What the fuck? Has the blood loss made you extra retarded? To pay your-"

"Yeah, supposedly. But why would you give a shit about my health?"

"Because, Jew, it is in my best interests to keep you in one piece. I will have a use for you one day."

"Like what?"

"Let's just say that there are slave traders in Turkey who pay an arm and a leg for redheads," Cartman grinned and when he leaned his weight against the armrest and leered at Kyle wickedly, Kyle decided that this discussion was totally counter-productive.

"I'll pay you back your money. But other than that, I don't owe anyone anything," Kyle said with an air of finality.

"Not even Stan?" Cartman asked slyly. Kyle blinked back his surprise and stared at Cartman openly. From the look on his face, the bastard knew he had sunk it.

"What are you trying to do? Pick me off while I'm too weak to fight back?" Kyle scowled.

"No, Jew. For, I have come to the conclusion that you are indestructible. That is my curse. Perhaps God really is on your side."

"What...did you just say?"

"I said, fucking do me the courtesy of at least _thinking_ about what I told you the other night. Because let's face it, I've always been smarter than you," Cartman said, ignoring Kyle's derisive snort and barrelling on, "You totally shouldn't deny yourself the chance to benefit from my wisdom just because of a silly childhood grudge. That would be a fucking shame for you."

"God, Cartman. You're so full of shit," Kyle told him.

Kyle couldn't avoid remembering Cartman's words, however, when later that night the opportunity for revenge once more reared its lovely head.

When they returned home, the sofa bed in the living room was still unmade, and since the closest thing Kyle had to a relationship was currently lying in a heap of gore on top of his own permanently ruined bed sheets, Kyle fell into the only remaining bed in the apartment, where he was lulled to sleep by the comforting scent of his childhood. While Kyle slept, Stan busied himself with the first bit of cleaning he had done in the apartment since they had moved in together: cleaning Kyle's blood off their kitchen floor.

When Kyle woke, in a cold sweat, two hours later he found himself surrounded by Stan's blankets and monitored by Stan's blue gaze.

"Sorry, man," Stan's voice filtered through the muggy cloud of sleep that still half-enveloped Kyle's mind, "I didn't mean to wake you. I was just checking up."

"You didn't wake me," Kyle rasped, though that clearly wasn't true. He sat up unaided.

"How do you feel?" Stan asked, getting out of his chair and moving to the edge of the bed in order to see Kyle's face more clearly.

"Fine. Just tired."

Kyle allowed Stan to take his good wrist and press it to measure the pulse. He watched Stan count silently, lashes lowered, mouth set in a professional line. Stan knew, Kyle thought, abruptly. He knew about Kenny and yet he was still doing this; touching Kyle with the caring, assertive fingers which were put to use to help save lives on a daily basis.

Perhaps the blood loss had impaired his judgement, but as Stan leaned across his body to check the gauze at his wrist, Kyle couldn't resist tilting his chin and parting his lips just so, because maybe it was really that easy. Stan caught the movement. The professionalism froze in its tracks. He wet his lips nervously with the tip of his tongue.

The unspoken invitation was in the air and accepted before either of them had thought to stop it. Kyle's palms found Stan's shoulders as Stan's fingers slid to the back of Kyle's neck. They paused like that, eyes lowered, breath heavy between them. Kyle couldn't tell if the grip on his neck was intended to hold him back or draw him closer, but because he didn't like grey areas, he nudged Stan's nose with his own and whispered,

"It's okay, dude. I won't break."

It was as if he had hacked a crucial password. Kyle's throat was still sounding the 'k' when Stan surged into him, grip merciless and mouth urgent. The strength of it caught Kyle off guard. His bluff had been called and he floundered to reciprocate.

Stan's technique wasn't as slick as Kenny's and his rhythms kind of clashed with Kyle's, but sex was sex. This did the job. I'll call it off before it gets too far, Kyle had thought with the first touch of Stan's lips to his. But then, all of a sudden, the rhythms harmonised and it was too late. He and Stan were moving against each other and Kyle couldn't think straight.

Stan's bedroom was the only part of the apartment that Kenny's presence had not touched. That night Kyle came, hard, gasping Stan's name with Stan's gentle grasp curled protectively over his gauze-covered wrist.

* * *

A/N: Phew. I have not proof-read and edited this properly. Chalk any weird bits up to that. Get ready to welcome back Kenny next chapter. I have missed him so!

Only another two or three chapters to wrap this thing up, I think. Thank you for coming this far and for all the lovely reviews! ^^


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: I need to hurry up and bang out the last couple of chapters of this because The Brat Prince has set me, foaming at the mouth, on a new fic idea. I had been working under the assumption that YCWIOMG would be my first and last South Park fanfic. Apparently, that may not be the case. You have her to thank for it if another does materialise. It already has a title and an opening line. It may already be too late to turn back.

BUT! This must get finished first because otherwise they will merge together in my head and I will get confused. My mind likes to merge things.

Er...so. Prior to the Stylish (get it?) last chapter, this is not a totally awesome part for Stan. Sorry guys. But you know...gotta take the rough with the smooth, hey?

One last thing: The POVs are kind of shockingly all over the place this chapter. I know it's messy, but I'm at a point in the story where I have to consciously try not to let anyone become 'the bad guy'. It would be an easy trap to slip into.

* * *

Kyle had fallen in love with Stan in ninth grade. The feeling had crept up on him slowly throughout the year and at its height it had damn near ruined his life.

Stan was the most popular kid in their grade and not only because he embodied the elusive 'cool' on which all social status was built. Stan was the kind of popular where everybodyloved him. There simply wasn't anything to dislike. He was unthreateningly smart, kind by default, handsome and athletic. His Hollywood smile had the girls swooning in the corridors.

Being so obviously treasured by Stan had made Kyle popular by association and Kyle knew that he had Stan to thank for the easy ride he'd had through high school. Kenny had that whole bad-ass-cool vibe which earned him respect, but Kenny was no Stan. Stan was South Park High's Prince Charming and Kyle hadn't had a hope in hell with him.

Kyle was no idiot; it was clear that Stan was as straight as they came. Not only was he straight, Stan was _conventional_. His epic relationship with the most beautiful girl in school was the talk of the covert booze-ups around Stark's pond on Friday nights. Kyle was frequently interrogated about Stan's exploits with Wendy, the questions snickered in his face on sugary alcopop-flavoured breath. _Has he banged her yet? I bet she gives fucking awesome head, right? We know he tells you everything. Would he let you borrow her for a ride? I mean, come on, you guys are tight. What's his is yours, dude. What's his is yours._

They asked Kyle because they wouldn't have dared reveal their desperate horniness to Stan and risk falling out of his favour, but the questions turned Kyle's stomach. He would plead ignorance, which was mostly true since Stan really wasn't a kiss and tell type. Kenny was usually there to rescue him from the firing squad. With a protective arm across Kyle's shoulders, Kenny held the crowd at bay with tales of his own sexual adventures, lurid enough to satisfy even the most raging teenage libido.

Kyle didn't want to have to picture Stan and Wendy fucking. It made him want to die.

The fat-ass, of course, had clocked the problem straight away and had predictably been a total dick about it. He would seat himself behind Kyle in class, bare feet away from Stan and lean forward to whisper in Kyle's ear.

"Don't worry, Kyle," he would coo, breath clammy on Kyle's skin, "I'm sure that when he's pounding Wendy, he's secretly wishing that it's your guts he's up to his nuts in."

Quite rightly, shit like that made Kyle totally spazz out in front of the entire class and he'd end up stuck in detention for the disrupting other people's learning. Kyle didn't care. The time he spent outside of detention that year was hardly much freer. He was angry all of the time, which made Stan worry and pester him constantly. They had variations of the same conversation again and again. It went like this:

"Dude, if something's wrong, you know you can tell me. Right?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"I can see something's wrong, dude."

"Then you need to go get your eyes checked, Stan. Because seriously. I'm fine."

Stan never believed him and consequently hovered around him more, watching for Kyle to slip up and reveal the barest hint of the problem so that Stan could charge in and valiantly save the day. Unfortunately, Stan's best intentions backfired in his face. His concern only made things worse. All in the name of avoiding suspicion Kyle found himself spending torturous hours sealed in bedrooms, with his super-best smouldering at his side, trying to fake like everything was normal. On more than one occasion, he had to resort to imagining Cartman's blubbery naked body in order to keep things under control.

Kyle could remember smashing things over Stan. He could remember scratching angry words over journal pages, pressing so hard that the pen punched ragged holes between the letters. It was hell. At the time, Kyle hadn't thought he could live through it and come out whole at the other end.

Of course, though, he had lived through it. He had tried to train himself out of looking at Stan that way and it had worked. By the time tenth grade rolled around, when Kyle had realised the true nature of Stan's relationship with Wendy, he was already over it and it was too late.

What Kyle had with Kenny now was so different to all of that childishness. This was new and raw and adult. And _real_. It made what he had felt for Stan seem like a distant dream.

It still felt like a dream. Kyle lay beside Stan, in Stan's bed, with the taste of Stan's sweat still on his lips - salty like tears - and yet none of it felt real.

After the spell of lust had broken and reality had leaked in, neither of them could speak for guilt. Stan felt guilty about using his best friend's wounded body for sex and Kyle felt guilty for taking advantage of Stan's feelings for him to get back at Kenny. They lay together in silence before Kyle, brushing away Stan's concerns with a firm, "I'm fine. I just need some more sleep," slipped out of bed and made his way to the bathroom.

There was a sick, heavy feeling in Kyle's stomach as he stared at his own face in the mirror. He was deathly pale, save for the remnants of orgasmic flush still brightening his cheeks and the dark shadows smudged beneath his eyes. It was a face Kyle barely recognised, more so when he lifted his hand to brush one errant curl off his forehead and the mirror reflected the ugly chunk of gauze shackled around his wrist.

Kyle didn't go back to Stan's room. He dragged the blankets off the back of the couch and lay down without bothering to unfold the concealed mattress. Kyle stayed there until morning, wrapped in clean covers that somehow still smelled like Kenny. He couldn't seem to stop shaking.

The next morning, breakfast was beyond awkward. It was clear to Stan, from the fact that Kyle had jumped ship to sleep in a different room, that he had ruined everything. Their eyes had met once, briefly, over the pot of coffee Kyle had brewed. That fleeting connection had paralysed Stan with horror. This was a morning-after which was to be scratched from the record, he realised. Kyle was acknowledging nothing, and the force of tension pressing down around them cowed Stan into respecting that. He could expect no less, he thought numbly as he followed Kyle's movements through covert glances. Every time Kyle's body shifted, Stan found his eyes being drawn to the rosy bite marks printed on Kyle's throat. Stan was ashamed to see how garish they looked now in the hard light of day; he had made those marks on purpose, so that Kenny would see them.

Kyle had already decided that he was going to punch Kenny in the face whenever the bastard decided to return because Kenny deserved an injury he couldn't just wake up clean of the next day. But when Kenny finally emerged from Kyle's room, sated and dreamy and stretching luxuriously, Kyle's instincts took over. He could do nothing but hurl down the morning newspaper he was holding, explode out of his chair and throw himself into Kenny's ready arms. Kyle pressed his body against Kenny's as hard as he could and clenched his fists in the fabric of Kenny's hoodie, rasping "Fuck you, _fuck you,_" against Kenny's shoulder. Stan had to have noticed his desperation. Kyle didn't care to hide it. But Stan just looked down politely and chose not to comment because he wasn't sure he had a right to.

That night, Kenny slept in the living room with Kyle and Stan had no more doubts left to cling to. Their excuse was that the smell of death had to air out Kyle's room before it would be inhabitable again, but Kyle wouldn't look Stan in the face as he told him this.

So, Stan lay in bed, trying not to visualise Kenny's bony fingers clutching at Kyle's hips. He tried not to think about Kenny's tongue, which had so recently been rotting into dust, worming its way between Kyle's lips. And, with his fingernails cutting into his palms, Stan tried to convince himself that Kyle wasn't enjoying it.

* * * * * *

If Kenny could have cut Kyle out and stuck him onto the final page of his travel book, he would have done. Instead, that night after work, he took Kyle to bed.

Compared to the stale air in the bedroom, Kyle's skin smelt fresh and vibrant, like the world after a thunderstorm. The bone and muscle of Kyle's body fitted so perfectly in his arms and the impassioned clench of Kyle's fingers against his back was the greatest validation that Kenny could ever hope for. He wanted to let every fragment of Kyle's soul seep into his pores and fill him with its burning radiance.

They made love with the easy grace of familiarity. They drew it out, made everything slow and languid as the slide of the sun into the morning sky. Kenny's nerves thrummed at the silky strength of Kyle's thighs around his hips, and when Kyle threw back his head and whispered sweet garbled nothings from the very back of his throat, Kenny reached a lust-intoxicated decision. He was not going to kill himself again, because this was damn well worth staying alive for.

They remained tangled together as the afterglow ebbed away. After a while, Kyle's breathing quietened and his face grew serious. He looked up at Kenny with shrewd, testing eyes.

"Stan knows," he said, "About what we're doing, I mean."

Kenny hadn't needed Kyle to spell that out for him. It had been kind of inevitable, what with the way they all lived under the same roof. He lightly dragged the side of his index finger across the chain of marks on Kyle's neck.

"Yeah? And what else does Stan know?" he asked, eyebrow raised. Kyle's mouth tightened as he leant away from Kenny's touch.

"You weren't here," Kyle enunciated carefully, the light of accusation in his eyes.

"I know. It wasn't a criticism. Just...an observation," Kenny replied.

They stared at one another, both mentally sounding out and discarding the different things they could say next.

"I should hate you," Kyle told him eventually. Kenny shrugged, lopsided, with only one shoulder.

"Probably," he said. But Kyle didn't look satisfied with that. Kenny tried, "I'm sorry," but that wasn't right either. Kyle shook his head gravely and laid one palm at the side of Kenny's face, his thumb brushing against Kenny's mouth.

"Promise me you won't ever fucking do that to me again," he said. It was an easy thing to promise; Kenny had sworn the same thing to himself minutes ago. He twisted his head to press a kiss to Kyle's thumb. The words were too quiet to hear, but Kyle felt the fleeting shapes they made on Kenny's lips before they were replaced with the smooth curve of Kenny's smirk.

"Enough of that shit," Kenny drawled and shifted his weight to press Kyle's shoulders back into the mattress. "Come on now, darlin'. Let me see you drop it like it's hot."

The corners of Kyle's mouth drifted upwards, reflecting Kenny's smirk.

"Sorry, dude," he said, with a haughty tilt of his chin, "You've obviously been misinformed. I'm not that kind of boy." Kenny grinned down at him.

"Bullshit. You brainy types are all the same. You look cute, but I bet you're a total slut on the inside."

"On the inside? Shit, you didn't know me at college, Kenny." Kyle met the leer in Kenny's eyes brazenly and when he reached out to run one hand up the length of Kenny's arm, Kenny felt his flesh tingle at the touch.

"Oh, hot," he breathed, leaning forwards to meet Kyle's lips, "That's hot."

Once they had fucked the sheets sweatier and Kyle's cheeks rosier, Kenny propped his weight up on one elbow and looked at Kyle with interest.

"Were you a slut in college?" he asked. Kyle's chuckle was throaty and warm.

"Ch. No. I slept with, like, three people in college, dude."

The effort of stifling their laughter was so great that they had to cling to one another to keep control. Although Kenny wasn't letting his guard down against Stan just yet, at that moment, he couldn't help but feel that his odds were improving.

Besides, Kenny had a greater problem than Stan. The problem was the ticking time bomb sitting in the bottom drawer of his desk at work. It was something that had been paid for out of the wage cheques Kenny had been saving for more than four years. It was a one-way plane ticket to Australia, the country on the first page of his book, and it was due to mature in a week's time. The arrangements had all been made, long ago. Kenny was pumped full of shots to combat tropical diseases; his first three visas were glued into the virgin pages of his passport; his parents had scraped together enough to buy him a second hand rucksack for his last birthday. The final step had been sabotaging his relationship and giving Theresa a reason to kick him out. There was no going back. Kenny had enough money now to launch the adventure. He would pick up jobs as he travelled to cover the rest.

It was what Kenny had been dreaming of his entire life. He had never for a moment imagined that this close to departure he would be half wishing that the ticket did not exist. Kenny wanted to go, but now, he also wanted Kyle, and there was only one way Kenny could think of to have both.

* * * * * *

Dusk was falling when Kyle arrived home from work. He pushed the front door open with his shoulder, ungainly with his briefcase in one hand, laptop in the other and car keys held between his teeth. The apartment was silent and doused in growing shadows. Kyle didn't bother to turn on the lights; the glow from the hallway was enough. His phone buzzed in his pocket while he was still struggling to deposit everything safely on the ground so that he could close the door. Without checking the caller ID, Kyle spat out his keys and answered the phone briskly, work-efficient in his lawyer suit.

"Broflovski," he said into the mouthpiece from force of habit. His name was met with a quiet chuckle on the other end of the line.

"Dude. We doing that now?" Kenny grinned down the phone, then changed his tone to one more suited to phone sex than to casual conversation. "This is McCormick calling," he purred. Some of the workday tension eased from Kyle's muscles. He leant his tired body back against the wall.

"Us professionals don't wear a name badge to help our clients out," Kyle teased, tilting his head back to stare up at the magnolia ceiling and trying to tone down his smile.

"Yeah? Well, some of us don't have clients calling at this time of night, if you get what I mean," Kenny shot back, voice laced with presumption. "I'm not hating on you for it. It's a living, right? But I just think you're worth so more than this, dude..."

"What do you want, Kenny?"

"Come meet me. I know you're home. I saw you come in."

That made Kyle pause. He stared around at the shadowy apartment, looked up, looked behind him for the tiny blinking red lights of Cartman brand equipment.

"Saw me? From...where?" he asked uncertainly.

"I'm on the roof."

"You're on the _roof_?"

"Yeah. Come up."

"I didn't even know you could get on the roof," Kyle frowned, "How the fuck did you get up there?"

"Oh my God, you're so lame. There's stairs, like, right at the end of your corridor, man."

An image of Kenny inching his way precariously, foot over foot, along the edge of the building's roof materialised in Kyle's mind. He saw the careless stretch of Kenny's arms, spread out either side of him like wings. He saw the phone cradled snugly between Kenny's chin and shoulder, as if talking on the phone whilst endangering your life was something that normal people did every day. Kyle remembered the car, remembered the kitchen knife and remembered that Kenny liked company.

"Dude, let's just get this straight right now," he said firmly, "I am _not_ jumping off a roof with you." Kenny made a scandalised noise in response.

"Damn, Kyle. What, you think I'd just break that promise first chance I got? No way, dude. I want to show you something. Get up here. Be quick," Kenny told him and then disconnected the call.

When Kyle reached the roof, Kenny was indeed standing too close to the edge, staring up at the sky with his hands shoved into his pockets. He turned at the sound of Kyle's approach. The sky was mottled with patchy rainclouds. The last remnants of sunset glowed melodramatically through the cloudless gaps, painting fiery highlights over Kenny's face.

"Congrats, man. You made it," he smiled tossing one arm out towards Kyle, a movement which simply invited a strong gust of wind to uproot him from his unstable perch. Kyle stepped towards his friend with swift, measured strides, seized the sleeve of the outstretched arm and used his grip on it to pull Kenny a further few steps back from the deadly drop. He ignored the mocking curl to Kenny's lip.

"Yeah. I made it. What are you doing up here?" Kyle demanded, eyes narrowed. But apparently, his stern tone was to Kenny like water to a duck's back.

"Look," Kenny chirped, leaning close. He hooked one arm around Kyle's neck and stretched it ahead of them right towards the sky. Kyle's gaze traced the length of Kenny's arm down to his pointing finger and beyond. At the tip of Kenny's finger, there was a tiny light in the sky. It drifted downwards with steady speed.

"A plane," Kyle frowned, stating the obvious. Kenny's face was so close to his that Kyle could feel the breath from Kenny's words against his cheek.

"No, dude. It's not. Look, it isn't flashing. Planes flash."

Kyle looked again, squinting into the distance. Kenny was right. This light was soft and faintly orange. It lacked the sharp brightness of man-made light.

"It looks like...fire," Kyle whispered.

"Right. That's what I thought. Fire in the sky. Think maybe something biblical's about to strike our asses down?"

Kyle shook his head in bewilderment, entranced by the burning object. As they watched the light stuttered and died, leaving a dark fleck of matter sinking past the clouds. A thin trail of smoke streamed behind it.

"It must be a meteorite," Kyle said, understanding suddenly dawning. "You know. A bit of debris from space. They mostly burn up when they hit our atmosphere but..." He shook his head, eye wide with wonder and geekish excitement bubbling uncontrollably inside of him. "Fucking sweet, dude. I've never seen one."

Kenny grinned beside him.

"I knew you'd get off on it," he said with pride.

They watched in silence until the meteorite sank completely from view, swallowed up by the clouds to land miles away and most likely to never be seen again.

"There," Kenny said, into the emptiness and leant more of his weight against Kyle's shoulders, "Now don't tell me I never get you anything. Next time I'll bring you a thermonuclear reaction, baby."

"You don't even know what that is," Kyle smirked

"Sure I do. I heard it on the news."

"A thermonuclear reaction would kill us all, dumbass," Kyle stated. Kenny nodded, mulling this over.

"So...what? You _don't _want one of those?" he asked slowly. Kyle didn't reply, but slid one arm around Kenny's hips, unaware that the natural pause in conversation weighed suddenly down on Kenny like a tonne of bricks. For the last time, Kenny entertained a brief fantasy of saying nothing to Kyle, of going to work tomorrow and feeding the plane ticket through the shredder. He badly wanted to preserve this moment, which somehow felt so important, but there was already too little time. Perched on a knife-edge of indecision, Kenny gave a tiny cough to clear his throat and prevent himself from backing out of this.

"There's...something else," he mumbled, sounding less certain than Kyle had ever heard him sound. When Kyle looked at him quizzically, Kenny reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and handed to Kyle the sheet of paper which had been hidden there. Kyle unfolded it and stared at the words. The date and destination and the words 'one-way' glared out at him before his brain stopped working and the letters began to merge before his eyes.

"You," Kyle said, then shook his head helplessly, feeling his expression crack. Kenny's sudden grip on his upper arms was so fierce that it shocked a gasp out of him.

"Come with me," Kenny breathed.

Kyle stared at him and made an inarticulate sound like "unh", which came from the very depth of his stomach and tugged at his chest.

"I don't expect you to decide right-" Kenny began quickly, but Kyle was still a step behind him.

"What?" he asked, incredulous, and pulled away from Kenny's hands. "You want me to what?"

"To come with me," Kenny repeated, keeping his voice low and calm, because this would be the only chance he had. "Listen, I understand that this is kind of a bombshell."

"Kind of?" Kyle croaked.

"So...I thought I should give you some space to think about it. I mean, Travel is something you should do for yourself, not for somebody else. I don't want to peer pressure you into anything."

"You fucking already peer pressured me into this shit in the first place!" Kyle snapped abruptly with a wild gesture meant to encompass everything between himself and Kenny. The words burst from Kyle's mouth before he had known he would say them and their raw heat surprised him. He was breathing hard, he realised, and his fingers were clenched tight around the edge of the paper, crushing it into creases.

Kenny watched him for a moment before stepping forwards cautiously, as if he expected Kyle to lash out at any moment. Kyle fought the uncharacteristic urge to spit in Kenny's face as the bastard reached out and rested one hand on Kyle's shoulder. If it hadn't been for the rare glint of genuine turmoil trembling behind Kenny's eyes, Kyle would probably have pushed him ruthlessly over the edge of the roof.

"I'm going to stay with my sister for a couple of days," Kenny murmured, "Just think about it, dude."

He pressed a kiss to the corner of Kyle's mouth, pulling the paper from Kyle's angry grip as he did so. Then, he turned his back on the darkening sky and strode away, leaving Kyle numb, standing alone on the rooftop.

* * *

A/N: Potentially, just one more chapter. Although...that would make it a thirteen-part story...hmm.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Gah, sorry this has been so slow in coming. I hit a block. But we're back on track now. Mostly.

I'm afraid this is not the last part. It was meant to be. But then it lingered on...

I know Stan was sort of absent from the last chapter. He was going to be from this one too but seems to have decided to fight back. My God, Style is tenacious, is it not? As much as Style is just not my pairing, somehow it always sneaks up on me, like the geeky guy you sort of know you can do better than but suspect may be perfect for you anyway.

I was also drunk when I wrote part of this. Hopefully that will have made it extra good? Fingers crossed. Because I have barely edited this time...

* * *

It was rainbow weather. But, if there was a rainbow anywhere in the sky over South Park today, Stan couldn't see it. The worst of the snow was melting into grey lumps of slush pushed up against the kerbs and the shifting rays of sunlight took the edge off the air's chill. Wendy had phoned Stan and asked him to meet her before she left town, which was lucky, because the phone number she had given him was now probably buried somewhere in the depths of a hospital filing cabinet. He had gone straight from work to Harbucks, where Wendy was already waiting for him. She waved from a sunken armchair and stood up to greet him, her smile crinkling the corners of her pretty eyes.

"Hi," she chirped as she wrapped manicured fingers around his bicep, pressed her cheek to his and made the noise of a kiss into empty air. The silky waterfall of her hair smelled like jasmine as it slid over her shoulder.

"Hi," Stan echoed, making the same noise, too late, just as she was pulling back. If Wendy noticed the faux-pas, she didn't comment. "Am I late?" he asked. Wendy flapped one hand dismissively.

"No, don't worry. I was early," she said, sitting back down again. She looked up at Stan with cheerful blue eyes and gave him a flirtatious little smile. "You look hot in that uniform, you know."

Stan paused and looked down at himself before taking a seat slowly in the armchair opposite hers. 'Hot' was the last word he would have ever used to describe his work clothes. He ran a self-conscious hand through his wind-ruffled hair.

"Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome." Wendy pushed a steaming mug towards him. "I ordered for you. Hope you don't mind. It can be your round next," she grinned. Stan shrugged in response.

"Sure," he said, reaching for the handle of the mug and lifting it to his lips. He took his time. The longer he was able to draw this meeting out, the longer he could stay away from the apartment, the better.

Stan was concentrating so hard on taking small, measured sips that it took him a moment to notice the silence that had fallen. When he lifted his gaze from his coffee, he found Wendy staring at him through narrowed eyes.

"What's wrong?" Wendy asked, voice crisp. The look in her eyes warned Stan not to bother with lying, because she would get the truth out of him even if it meant resorting to torture. Stan was no fool. There was no shame in self-preservation.

"Kyle's sleeping with Kenny," he admitted, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

Wendy's eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open before her entire face crumpled into sympathy.

"Oh, honey," she breathed, reaching across the table to clasp Stan's hand in a comforting caress, "No. Are you okay?"

"Um," Stan said, and then stopped because he didn't trust himself not to subject her to a totally faggy breakdown if he said more. Since the break-up, Wendy had always treated him as an honorary member of her devoted sisterhood. She bestowed upon him the same fierce no-questions-asked loyalty she favoured her girlfriends with. Stan was not immune to its persuasive power, so when Wendy squeezed his hand with a kind of militant camaraderie and said, "Those little shits. Tell. Me. _Everything_," Stan found himself spilling the whole story as if she had hypnotised him.

Wendy had always been a model listener; she knew how to make all the right noises at all the right times; her eyes were bright and earnest as she hung on his every word. Most importantly, Wendy was whole-heartedly on his side and when Stan was spent and still fizzing with the tension of confession, she had practical advice at the ready to ease him through the cool-down.

"You can't just let this go, Stan," Wendy told him, her expression grave. "You have to fight for him." She lifted her mug of now lukewarm tea to her lips and took a contemplative sip. "That's what I'd do."

"Fight for him," Stan repeated sceptically, his voice tinged with weary scorn.

"Yes! Fight for him!" she exclaimed, the fire of revolution burning in her eyes. Tea sloshed over the edge of her mug as she slammed it against the table. "Yeah, I know that this is _Kyle_ and that Kyle's, like, your Kryptonite, but you cannot let him get away with doing whatever the hell he likes just because you're scared of losing him, Stan! He's fucking you about, don't you see that? He's totally playing you." Wendy tossed her glossy mane in agitation and bared perfect pearly teeth. "My God, he's the same as the rest of them! Men are _shit._"

The force of her righteous anger shocked Stan from his apathy and damn near flattened him against the plush back of his Harbucks armchair. He watched apprehensively as Wendy released a calming breath, pushing spread palms downwards against an imaginary force; it was an anger-management technique that Stan recognised from CPD training sessions at work. Once she had quietened her demons, which really, Stan had no desire to hear anything about given the strength of her outburst, Wendy looked at him once more with sanity clear in her eyes.

"Do you understand?" she asked, "Kyle cares about you. You know he does. He's just...lost his way. That's all." Wendy's smile was kind, but her words struck a painful chord in Stan's chest because he had lately been having similar thoughts himself, only with one crucial difference. To Stan's mind, it was beginning to seem that Kyle had not so much lost his way, as finally found it.

"Yeah. I hear you, Wendy. I just, I wish it was that simple. You know? Seriously, you did not _see_ the look on his face when Kenny came back this time. It was..." Stan trailed off and shook his head helplessly. Words had never come that easily to him and now he felt barely able to comprehend, let alone vocalise, the intense emotion he had seen sweep across Kyle's features when he had laid eyes on Kenny again. Wendy clucked her tongue and reached a comforting hand out for his.

"Stan. Come on. Who in their right mind would want Kenny when they could have you?" she asked sweetly, her head dropping to one side with an indulgent little smile. The sentiment rang hollow though, because Stan knew from experience that it was bullshit.

* * * * * *

The apartment was dark and silent when Stan got home. He was greeted by the corner of Kyle's discarded briefcase, which tripped him, nearly sending him flat on his face as soon as he had stepped through the door. Stan stumbled, muttered curses and caught himself against the wall with long-honed athletic reflexes, before taking the time to stare down at the offending object. It looked alien, slumped there against the floorboards. Kyle was not a person who was careless with his belongings, particularly ones which were essential to his work. The briefcase did not bode well, nor did the sharp glint of the car keys, sprawled haphazardly in the oblong glow from the hall light. Stan stared into the gloom of the apartment, unwilling to consider exactly what had befallen his friend this time. He proceeded towards his room with caution, on the lookout for any blonde corpses on the floor which would surely succeed where the briefcase had failed.

The darkness of the hallway was interrupted by a sharp slash of light leaking from the half-open door to Kyle's room. Stan stepped into it and paused there, listening for the telltale sounds of any activity he didn't want to walk into the middle of. Hearing nothing, Stan knocked gingerly on the door. Again, he was met with nothing but silence. Queasy images of blood-stained sheets and missing kitchen knives juddered through Stan's mind and, seized with sudden panic, he shoved open the door, privacy be damned.

"Kyle?" he barked, slightly louder than was probably necessary. Kyle looked up innocently from where he sat on the bed, a notebook open in his lap. Caught unexpectedly in his friend's cool green gaze, Stan suddenly found that he had nothing to say. Kyle was staring at him expectantly, as was natural considering that Stan had just burst into his room brandishing his name like a sword, but Stan was like a rabbit caught in headlights. Since Kenny had returned, Stan and Kyle had been avoiding each other as much as possible by unspoken mutual consent and Stan realised too late that he wasn't ready for this kind of one-on-one confrontation just yet.

"What?" Kyle asked eventually, when Stan continued to gape like a fish.

"I...Hi," he stuttered, feeling his cheeks flush under the heat of Kyle's stare. Kyle raised one eyebrow.

"Hi," Kyle returned. He was staring at Stan now with wary reserve and a tinge of condescension.

'Think I'm crazy?' Stan wanted to snap at him, 'Well congratu-fucking-lations to you for making me this way.'

"So...you're sleeping in here tonight then?" Stan said because it was the first coherent sentence which popped into his head. It was a ridiculous, pointless question, though, and they both knew it. Kyle looked at him blankly. Stan could feel the electricity of Kyle's growing irritation crackling around the room. They stared each other down for a moment until Stan could feel some of that anger beginning to creep under his own skin.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" Kyle stated insolently. On the surface, Kyle's tone challenged Stan to argue the point, but beneath that was a goading dare to confront the real cause of the tension in the room. Stan felt himself boil over. Sometimes, interaction with Kyle gave Stan a glimpse into what he imagined life with disobedient teenage offspring might be like. Stan refused to play along this time; he was done being involved in Kyle's bullshit.

"Fine," Stan spat, as he held up weary hands and stepped backwards out of the room. "I'm sorry I was stupid enough to be worried about your heartless ass," he tossed at Kyle glibly before using his full strength to tug the door closed, plunging the hallway into darkness.

Stan kind of expected the door to be jerked open again instantly and for Kyle to demand to know what the hell he was playing at. That didn't happen though and when Stan went to bed that night without another word to Kyle, he didn't feel the least bit sorry about it.

* * * * * *

Kenny's spiral notebook hit the floor as Kyle shoved it off of his knees. The flaccid slap of dreams hitting the laminate floorboards was swallowed whole by the rattling bang of Stan slamming shut the bedroom door. Kyle let his body fall backwards onto the bed, where the quiet pain of his fingers tugging at his curls kept him from crying out in frustration.

It seemed that he was finally going to be punished for having led such a charmed life for so long. All things considered, Kyle felt that he should have seen this coming. 'Yeah, you should have done,' life totally seemed to be replying when Kyle's phone rang a moment later and the caller ID informed him that it was his mother calling. Kyle turned his head and watched as the call's vibrations sent his little phone shuddering down his pillow. The display on the screen switched to 'missed call,' but Kyle's relief was short lived as the phone jerked instantly to life once more. The word 'Mom' flared out at Kyle sternly, demanding his immediate attention. Kyle groaned. His mother could have given Sarah Palin a run for her money; she was every bit the tenacious pit-bull. Kyle knew that resistance was futile, so he picked up his phone and put it obediently to his ear.

"Hi Mom," he said, trying to force enough emotion into his voice to stop her growing suspicious.

"Kyle. So you _are_ alive. That's nice to know." His mother's sarcastic drawl accosted him from afar. Kyle settled himself more comfortably on the pillows. As he had grown up, his relationship with his mother had settled into a comfortable kind of agreement to disagree. They would never really understand each other's choices or crusades, but they understood each other, because they were at heart the same.

"Nice to know you're alive, too, Mom," Kyle said, copying her tone flawlessly.

"Bubbala, you never call me. What does it take to pick up a phone and call your mother once in a while?"

"I know. I'm sorry. I've been really busy with work, and-"

"Have you even spoken to your brother recently?" his mother interrupted, because she was rarely interested in listening to anyone's voice other than her own. Kyle suppressed a sigh and dragged one hand over his face.

"Ike and I don't need to speak, Mom. We have Facebook now."

Sheila gave an indignant grunt at that, but didn't complain further. Technology baffled her; they both knew she wouldn't have a leg to stand on in a Facebook-related argument.

"He got an award at the school, don't you know," she told Kyle instead, his failure to contact her forgiven if not forgotten. Kyle raised his eyebrows. He could hear the pride glowing in his mother's voice.

"He did?"

"For science."

"Wow."

"And your father is building a new shed in the back yard."

"Dad's building a shed? He's _building_ a shed?"

"That's what I said."

"What the hell? Dad's never built anything."

"Don't say hell, Kyle," Sheila chided absently, "But I know. I told him it was ridiculous to try since he can't even hang a picture straight, but he's been watching that Extreme Makeover Home thing on the television...it's a programme where they build new houses for less fortunate people-"

"Yeah, I know what it is, Mom," Kyle interrupted hastily. The last thing he needed was to hear his mother attempting to explain pop culture.

"Yes. Well, it gets him all teary-eyed and I've tried to explain that obviously, a new shed in our yard will do nothing to help the needy, but it's his project, Kyle. He had Randy Marsh over helping him yesterday. Really, they're like children with new toys."

Kyle was absorbing this meandering tale of the domestic normality he had until so recently been an integral part of, when, as usual, his mother took it upon herself to fill the silence.

"How's Stanley?"

It was the wrong question to ask. Kyle's body went still, his gaze fixed, unblinking, on the white swirls of the ceiling. How was he to answer that? What would his mother want to hear? He could have told her about Stan slamming his door so hard that it damn near shook the whole building. He could have told her about Stan carrying him to hospital, doused in his blood. He could have told her about the fading bruises he still wore along his throat, an unsettling reminder of what the rest of his body had been doing when Stan had put them there. Kyle swallowed uneasily.

"Stan's fine," he told his mother.

Kyle's mom didn't ask how Kenny was, because she didn't know about Kenny. Kyle hadn't told her and couldn't imagine telling her. Yet he had been sitting here for the past hour poring over that stupid notebook and considering buying a plane ticket to Australia to be with him. Something in that equation just wasn't adding up quite right.

Back when he and Kenny were doing nothing more together than befriending hookers and drinking in seedy bars, Kenny had explained at great length about his hedonistic love affair with Rimbaud. Kyle had been stunned. Kenny's knowledge was basic and his interpretations misguided, but seriously. Foreign literature? Kyle doubted that topic of conversation had ever graced a South Park bar in the entire history of the town.

"I don't really know all the fancy stuff about poetry and shit," Kenny had said, with such transparent humility that Kyle couldn't help but be impressed by it, "But I've Wiki-ed him, you know? And he sounds pretty awesome."

Kyle had taken an introductory French literature module as an elective at college, back when he had been kind of infatuated with Etienne, who had the dorm room across the hall from his. Kyle's memories of studying Rimbaud were vague and punctuated with filthy messages scrawled in the margins of lecture notes and discreet groping under the benches. He remembered enough, though. He remembered the story of Rimbaud stabbing his hapless lover, Verlaine, in the hand with a knife for no reason other than Rimbaud had decided that the other man had never felt anything powerful enough and had impulsively taken it upon himself to rectify that. He also remembered the poems about being raped which were oh-so-ambiguous in their authenticity that it made Kyle flinch in his seat and Etienne stroke soothing caresses along Kyle's thigh. Rimbaud had destroyed his lover's life: wrecked his marriage, seen him tossed in jail. It was no wonder that afterwards, broken and alone, Verlaine had sworn that Rimbaud was the devil himself.

Rimbaud was interesting, but he was a troubling person to idolise, and Kyle had told Kenny as much.

"Rimbaud was completely fucked in the head, dude," had been Kyle's exact words.

Kenny had just smirked playfully and tilted his glass so that the whiskey rolled to the very edge and was in danger of plummeting down to splash all over the table.

"No," he'd replied, with a shake of his head, "He just couldn't face being the same as everybody else."

Kyle hadn't exactly felt that was justification for stabbing the people you were sleeping with, but then, Kyle was now possessed of fresh insight into that particular vice.

The fact was Kyle wasn't sure of _anything_ anymore. His logic was disintegrating around him. Rimbaud's way of living was either very right or very wrong but Kyle couldn't tell which. Kenny and Stan sat secure in different places on the hedonistic scale while Kyle drifted somewhere between the two, drowning in uncertainty. And that sucked ass. Especially since the only person he had always been able to talk to about this kind of stuff had just stormed from his room in a jilted rage.

* * * * * *

While the low murmurings of Kyle's phone conversation drifted through his bedroom wall, Stan had cracked open the bottle of Jack Daniels which had been his father's housewarming present to him and had made a good go at it. This probably hadn't been the wisest decision (drinking alone in your room never was), but it was damn well effective and he was off shift tomorrow so there was really no way that it could matter. Stan was sick to death of being responsible. He wanted to drink himself into a stupor.

Luckily, thanks to a gruelling day, Stan fell asleep before he got that far and awoke later that night with no more than a mild, lingering buzz to show for his efforts. The timid knock at the door which had awoken him sounded again and Stan pushed himself groggily up on his elbows, squinting his eyes open into the garish light from the lamp he had not bothered to turn off. When the door opened and Kyle stepped into the room, Stan could only stare at him listlessly and wait for Kyle to leave again so that he could go back to sleep.

"Um," Kyle said, rubbing his hand awkwardly up and down one sleeve, the way he did when he was nervous before an exam. One of the drunker parts of Stan's brain rejoiced at how the tables had turned and the mighty had fallen.

"What?" he said in the same cold tone that Kyle had used to speak to him so often recently, adding only a hint of irony to soften the blow.

Kyle hesitated a moment, biting delicately at his bottom lip.

"I can't sleep. My wrist hurts," Kyle said eventually, with the slow consideration of a lie. Stan was too tired and buzzing to be anything but blunt.

"Seriously?" he asked as he dashed the sleep from his eyes with the swipe of a hand. Kyle looked as contrite as Kyle was capable of looking and rotated his wrist a little guiltily.

"Well. Sort of. I mean, it kind of aches," he conceded.

Stan studied his friend's face. Kyle's features were tense, his eyes dull and tired. The bruises still stood out on his neck like war wounds. If Kyle was lying, which was likely, he was doing it because he needed an excuse to be in Stan's room in the middle of the night. Stan realised that he had not seen any trace of Kenny in the apartment tonight and that Kyle wasn't here to argue or try to seduce him or to make things more complicated. Kyle was here because he needed a friend.

Stan heaved a sigh, pinched the bridge of his nose to gather his faculties and motioned Kyle over to the bed.

"Bring it here," he said, looking up as he felt the mattress dip with Kyle's weight. He took the wrist Kyle offered to him and examined it gently, despite knowing that there would be nothing to see. "Have you changed the gauze today?"

"Should I have?" Kyle asked blankly. Stan just managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes. For a smart guy, Kyle was total shit at taking care of himself.

"Yeah. Didn't the doctor tell you that?"

"Probably. I don't really remember."

Stan dug out the pair of scissors in the middle drawer of his bedside cabinet and began to cut the gauze away, the need to focus repressing the alcohol still in his blood. He flicked a glance up at Kyle's face to find Kyle's eyes fixated on the movements of his fingers. The gauze fell away to reveal a clean wound, sealed with perfect stitches. It was obviously healing well. Stan ran the tip of one finger lightly across the stitches and Kyle shivered a little. When Stan looked up at Kyle this time, Kyle was looking back and their gazes locked.

"I'm sorry," Kyle blurted, abruptly, "Stan, I- I'm sorry for...I'm just sorry," he looked kind of wretched and shook his head. "I've been a dick to you."

That was true, Stan thought. But he was a sucker for genuine remorse and besides, this was Kyle. He would forever be guilty of forgiving Kyle too easily.

"That's-," Stan began, but Kyle wasn't through yet.

"Kenny's leaving," Kyle continued, because he had opened the floodgates and honestly seemed to be the only option left to him now.

"Leaving...?"

"The country. To travel. You know. To travel the world. Dude, I'm sorry, but I have no-one else to tell. He's asked me to go with him. I don't know what to do."

Stan's insides all seemed to evaporate and he was sure his heart stopped pumping. He knew what Kyle would do. Kyle would go with Kenny, because they were obviously in love.

Stan clenched his teeth. Wendy was wrong. Fighting for Kyle was not the way to play this. It was too late for that. Stan had already lost on that front. Instead, he would try to salvage the one thing that might be left; the one thing which had been most important all along. Stan pushed down his jealousy and blocked out the memory of Kyle's heated gasps. He could let that go if it would ensure the survival of the most important relationship of his life. Super-best friendship was worth fighting for, Stan decided, and his determination to keep it alive was strong enough to eclipse everything else. He gathered the pieces of himself together and charged on in to make things right.

"Well..." he began slowly, "Dude, you know, this is one of those decisions that other people can't help you with. Because ultimately you're the only one who knows what's here," Stan tapped the centre of Kyle's chest, "and that's what you got to base this on. You can't use your head." Stan watched the soft bounce of Kyle's red curls as Kyle shook his head helplessly. He reached one hand out and clasped the back of Kyle's neck to stop the movement, his grip firm and fraternal. "I got your back though, dude. Whatever. You know that."

Kyle's throat moved as he swallowed down emotions he wasn't used to. He leant forwards and fearlessly wrapped his arms around his best friend, drawing fierce comfort from Stan's strong body. Stan swept his own free arm across Kyle's shoulder blades and hugged him back, waiting until Kyle was composed and ready to pull away.

"Can I just stay here?" Kyle asked quietly when he had finally broken the embrace. He couldn't help glancing at the bed a little furtively, but he knew he could trust Stan not to interpret his request the wrong way. Sure enough, Stan nodded and shifted his body to the cold side of the bed, leaving room for Kyle to slip between the sheets.

Stan switched off the lamp and they lay side by side in the dark. After a while, the residual mellow hum of whiskey lulled Stan to sleep. Kyle heard Stan's breathing slow and deepen but Kyle stayed awake long into the early hours of the morning as his thoughts battered the walls of his brain raw. Very gradually, as he lay there, a clear path began to materialise.

Kyle thought of the solid strength of Stan's shoulders. He thought of his name, scrawled right above Stan's on the housing contract. He thought of Kenny's crooked smirk, his dancing eyes, the blood and danger and _lightning_.

And Kyle made up his mind.

* * *

A/N: Gah. I'm sorry that dragged on so long with nothing really happening. It felt more realistic to slow the pace again towards the end, but that does not make for exciting reading. I've been a little self-indulgent with this chapter. I do hope you weren't too bored. ^^;


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: There be poetry half way through this FINAL chapter. It is an extract from a poem by (naturally) Arthur Rimbaud, called 'Les Reparties de Nina'. There are many wonderful Rimbaud translations out there, but I never agree with them completely so tend to do my own and prefer it that way. Anyway, the poem is Rimbaud's, but the translation is mine so I'd rather you didn't steal it without crediting me. Or him. Blates.

This is not the MOST conventional fanfic ending. I'm beginning to suspect that people might not be impressed by it.

But. I am going to try hard to make this good. No drunkenness, no 'forgetting' to edit this time. Read back over the last chapter I posted and whoo boy was it a mess. Fixed the major problems...er...like the MISSING WORDS. Sigh. And that's why alcohol is bad for you...

Anyway. Here we go.

* * *

Kyle had suggested that they meet at Stark's Pond. It was neutral territory, he had said, and it was mostly private. Kenny waited for him there, scuffing his sneakers into the snow, his fingers itching to chain smoke their way through all the cigarettes in town. He had kicked the habit three years ago, but hot damn if this wasn't the perfect time to start up again. He was pacing like a restless lion when Kyle finally showed, padding carefully towards him across the icy ground.

Kyle's red curls stood out like fire against grey sky, greyer water and grey-shadowed snow, while the air's bitterness flushed his cheeks and lips a subtle rose. Of all of the people Kenny knew in South Park, Kyle was the only one whose beauty seemed to actually be enhanced by the cold. Regardless of what Kyle was about to tell him, the way that boy looked right now made Kenny want to steal him away with him today, human rights be damned. Kenny wondered if that had been a factor in Kyle's choice of meeting place: if he had bet on his looks and played a cleverly chosen hand. Kyle was a self-aware little fucker. When it suited him, he could twist people to his will way more effectively than Cartman could because when Kyle did it, he did it with grace. You missed it coming until it was too late.

Kenny kind of hated himself for his neediness, but as Kyle stopped in front of him, the corners of his mouth curving into a tiny smile of greeting, Kenny couldn't help trying to read Kyle's decision from his body. Could the line of Kyle's shoulders be the clue? The way he held his head? How he clutched his elbows, arms crossed protectively against the chill?

But there was nothing. Kyle was unreadable this time and Kenny couldn't wait any longer.

"Have you made a decision?" he asked.

Kyle sighed and looked down at his feet, as if he had been hoping to somehow get out of this and was disappointed to find that wasn't going to happen. His head made a miniscule motion, which Kenny could only assume to be a nod, but he didn't say a word. Kenny gave him a minute before deciding that, hell no, these games weren't cute. He nudged a fist under Kyle's chin, forcing Kyle to look at him.

"Do I get to know it?" Kenny asked, his smirk jovial but no-nonsense. He felt the motions of Kyle's throat against his knuckles as the redhead swallowed. It was the only sign that Kyle's nerves were flaring; his eyes were steely with resolve.

"My decision is: don't go," Kyle stated.

Kenny hissed a breath in through his teeth and raised his eyes heavenward because this was the response he had dreaded the most. He didn't want the ball in his court. Not this time. He removed his fist and allowed Kyle's chin to drop.

"I can't just bail, dude," Kyle was saying, "Everything is here. My family, my job, my home..."

"Stan."

Kenny couldn't stop himself saying it. He couldn't keep the acidic edge out of the word, either. If he was honest, he hadn't tried to. Kyle looked at him with warning. The super-best was apparently not to be implicated in this discussion.

"Yeah. Stan. He's my best friend. Did you really think I'd just completely ditch him after all of this?"

"No. Honestly, no, I didn't. But I thought that it was worth a shot. Because, dude," Kenny heard a crack in his voice that he hadn't felt coming. He stepped forwards and ran his hands up Kyle's arms. Kyle's hands covered his. "Kyle. Kyle. Come on. We both know that this is..._something._"

"So don't walk away from it," Kyle pleaded, and used his fingers, his mouth, his sighs, to make his case. It was tempting. It was so very tempting, especially with the perfect angles of Kyle's body pressing against him and the sweet burn of Kyle's lips, moving against his jaw. Right then, Kenny wanted to agree. He wanted to give Kyle anything he asked for. But,

"No," he whispered and Kyle ripped himself spitefully away, leaving Kenny's arms cold and empty.

This was a fight now, Kenny realised as Kyle stared him down, his shoulders squared aggressively. Somewhere along the line, they had lost the easy casualness of what they had. It was too late to go back on it now. Kenny wasn't getting out of this in one piece.

"You're completely fucking me over by leaving," Kyle accused, the feeling of betrayal typed clear across his face. But Kenny wasn't folding.

"I'd be fucking myself over if I stayed," he countered.

Kyle's eyes were like bullets; their gaze tore into him. Kenny kept his cool, despite the tightness in his chest and the clamminess of his palms.

"Dude, I love you, but I'm not going to let you take this from me," Kenny said firmly, and watched as those cleverly wrapped words jolted through Kyle and struck deep. "You can come with me, or..." Kenny made a helpless gesture. When Kyle spoke next, his defences were weakening and the desperation was starting to creep in.

"You- You're asking me to choose between you and _everything else_ in my life, Kenny. That's not even a choice. Can't you see that?"

"Right. And you're asking me to do the same thing."

The fallen silence seemed to grow and solidify, as the very air around them held its breath.

It was Kyle who broke it.

"Then...I choose life, dude," he said in a hollow voice. Kenny swallowed down the instinct to object. He nodded.

"So do I."

Another silence fell, defeated and wretched.

"Oh God," Kyle murmured, as the reality of what was happening began to sink in. "Oh _God_," he repeated, louder, because this was so fucking ridiculous that he could have screamed.

"Kyle," Kenny tried, stepping towards him, but Kyle's eyes just flashed at him dangerously.

"No," Kyle snapped and his vehemence stopped Kenny in his tracks, because that was the end. There was too much hurt, too much stubbornness in Kyle's eyes for Kenny to ever be able to break through it. He could only stand in the snow and watch as Kyle walked away, back to a world that Kenny had never really belonged to.

* * * * * *

When Kyle returned to the apartment, still shivering despite the warmth of the building, it was to find the fat-ass sitting on the couch with Stan. They had been speaking in low voices, heads bent close, but they both looked up as Kyle entered, Cartman faking an expression of innocence. Kyle gritted his teeth. Whoever had given Cartman the apartment address in the first place was a fucking idiot, Kyle thought. He knew that he himself would never have done something so retarded, so that left either Stan or Kenny or possibly both deserving to get their asses kicked.

"Why, afternoon, Kyle," Cartman whined, sugar sweet, "I trust you have had a pleasant day? Whoring your way through more of our mutual friends, perhaps?"

"_Dude_. Not cool," Stan chided, shooting a stern glare of disapproval at Cartman.

Since Kyle had spilled his guts to him about Kenny going to Australia, Stan had been acting every inch the model best friend. He didn't pester Kyle with questions. In fact, he didn't question him at all. He just radiated constant assurances of support, the way he had done when they were kids, they way he was doing now. It was sweet of Stan to care, but he needn't have bothered. There was no way in hell that Kyle was getting involved with Cartman today.

He walked right on past with a dignified, "Fuck you, Monstro," and headed towards the hallway with the full intention of climbing under his covers and sleeping until the world stopped turning.

At least, that was Kyle's intention until Cartman slung one thick arm across the back of the couch and twisted awkwardly in his seat.

" 'Ey! Fag!" he barked at Kyle's retreating back, "When am I gonna get my money? I swear to God, you try to Jew me out of it and I'll finish the job for you. You obviously can't cut for shit, but since I have more than three hairs on _my _chin, I actually know how to handle a razor blade."

Kyle's restraint crumbled in an instant. He'd spent too much time recently trying to repress what he really thought. He dashed the last few strides to his room, snatched his chequebook from his desk and scrawled a signature across the bottom of the first cheque the book opened on. He stormed back to the living room, anger curling at his lips, and hurled the chequebook as hard as he could at Cartman's head. It connected with a satisfying smack.

"Holy fucking hell! Take your goddamned money! I don't give a shit," Kyle screamed, while Cartman was lumbering to his feet as fast as a mammoth like him could lumber.

"Ow!" he squawked, enraged and stabbed one finger in Kyle's direction, "That is _assault_ Kyle! I'll sue your fucking ass off."

"I'd love to see you try! Make my day!" Kyle yelled back, throwing the pen he still held in his hand. It was childish, an act of frustration. If Kyle had been thinking straight he would have marched over and split his knuckles open on Cartman's face instead, but as it was, the rage made him see black. His aim was shit. Cartman caught the pen easily.

Stan was on his feet now too, throwing his weight against the brick wall of Cartman's torso to hold him back. Cartman cast the pen violently aside, where it connected with an abandoned mug on the coffee table and sent the contents cascading over the floor.

"Dude, what the _fuck_, Stan! Control your Jew!" Cartman spat, glaring murder at Kyle over Stan's shoulder.

"He's not 'my' anything," Stan said firmly. Cartman did not try to knock him aside and throttle Kyle, but he speared Stan with a look of pure disgust.

"Fucking hell. You're such a Jew-loving pussy," Cartman told him, "You'd have been shot as a sympathizer during the Great War."

Stan squeezed his eyes shut in exasperation.

"Jesus Christ, dude," he muttered, "You gotta stop referring to the holocaust that way."

"The Great War was the _First_ World War, dickhead. Read a _fucking_ history book," Kyle snapped at Cartman, before he retreated into his room and slammed the door hard behind him.

He was restlessly folding laundry, blood still boiling, when Stan knocked on his door fifteen minutes later.

"I made sure he only took what he was owed," Stan said, holding up Kyle's somewhat battered chequebook. Kyle grunted his thanks. Stan laid the chequebook down on the desk, which was still cluttered with piles of paper and law tomes open to marked pages. Stan frowned. He had expected to find Kyle's room half-packed into boxes by now, but here everything stood still in its right place.

"You're..." Not packed. Not going. Stan's voice stalled on the words and he pushed them away before they came out wrong.

Before the chequebook incident Cartman had spent an hour plying Stan with plans to force Kyle to stay, most of which involved either Kenny's unfortunately gory demise or Kyle being gagged and handcuffed somewhere far, far away from the airport. Stan had ignored them all, just as he had ignored Wendy, because he knew Kyle better than everybody else in the world combined. You couldn't trick Kyle into anything, least of all loving you.

"Did you speak to Kenny?" he asked cautiously and although Kyle did not look up, his folding somehow seemed to grow more violent.

"Yep."

Stan watched as Kyle slapped one shirt onto the folded pile and wrenched back the arms of the next without the slightest break in rhythm.

"What happened?"

"I refused to go and he refused to stay. So."

"I...Dude."

"Yeah."

"But I thought..."

"What?"

Stan hesitated. Resolving to support Kyle no matter what was one thing, but he didn't think he could stomach anything that even resembled encouraging Kyle to leave. Kyle pursed his lips and looked up. The sudden rush of green nearly knocked Stan off his feet.

"I'm not just going to adopt somebody else's dream, Stan, so I can pretend that it's what I want too," Kyle said.

Despite Kyle's matter-of-fact dismissal of the question that Stan hadn't been able to ask, he was not going to fall into the trap of thinking that Kyle's unpacked belongings meant that he shouldn't still be drafting an ad for a room to let. Kenny was still in the country and Kyle was still in love with him. Stan remembered how this part of a break-up felt. Nothing was over yet.

Sure enough, two days later, Kenny turned up at the door. Stan had been expecting it, but actually seeing him still made Stan's hand clench so tight against the doorframe that the wood bit dents into his palm. Kenny looked at him in a shifty, winsome way that made his skin crawl. Tricks to get Kyle back were practically spilling out of Kenny's fraying sleeves and Stan could see the determination bubbling in his too-blue eyes.

"Dude. Kyle's not here," Stan said, silently thanking God for small miracles. Kenny shifted his weight and braced one arm against the doorframe, leaning haphazardly close.

"I know. I wanted to talk to you."

"Shit." It slipped from Stan's mouth before he could stop it and Kenny raised an amused eyebrow. "I mean...," Stan attempted to backpedal, before deciding it was pointless. "No, yeah, I meant 'shit'."

Kenny smiled his crooked smile.

"I know, right? Can I come in, though? I promise if it comes to blows, you _will_ be able to beat the crap outta me. I swear not to fight dirty, and dude, you know without that I got nothing."

It was against his better judgement, but the potential opportunity for violence kind of swayed him. Stan stepped aside and let the door gape open. Kenny slipped through the gap and into Stan's home, just as he had all those weeks ago when Stan had inadvertently set this whole thing in motion.

They hovered uneasily together in the living room beside the couch where the ghostly imprint of Kenny's long limbs and Kyle's sweet gasps still lingered. Stan had to fight to block the images from his mind.

Eventually, Kenny pulled his hands out of his pockets and looked Stan in the eye. His gaze was sincere but he held his body tense, as if ready to bolt.

"Listen, Stan," he said slowly, "...Are we cool?"

That was it: 'Are we cool?' That was all the apology Stan would be getting, right there. Not that Kenny technically had anything to apologise for, Stan had to remind himself. Kyle had obviously been more than consenting. And besides, all was fair in love and war. Stan couldn't honestly say that he wouldn't have behaved exactly the same in Kenny's position.

"I guess so," he shrugged. "I can understand. I can understand why you'd want to...I mean, Kyle's...I mean, yeah."

Stan could have kicked himself for his lack of eloquence. But this was Kenny, who had been there every step of the way when Stan had been growing up; who had given Stan his first taste of hard liquor; who had bought Stan his first condoms when Stan had been too embarrassed to do it himself. And Kenny got it.

"Yeah," Kenny agreed, "He is."

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna miss you, man," Kenny blurted, and meant it. Stan shifted his weight from foot to foot and tried to forget everything but the fact that there was a very old friend standing in front of him who was about to bail out of his life for Christ knew how long. It mostly worked.

"When do you leave?" he asked.

"Tonight."

"Seriously?" Stan said, and that had done it. Regret flooded through Stan. He knew that it was showing on his face. Cartman was right. He was a pussy if he could get damn near choked up saying goodbye to the guy who had practically cuckolded him. "Weak," he muttered, "So this is the last time I'll see you in..."

"As long as it takes," Kenny shrugged.

"Shit."

And Stan looked so miserable all of a sudden that Kenny's heart half broke with guilt, because Stan was an honest-to-God good guy who hadn't deserved all this shit. Stan had never exerted the full strength of his super-best power to sway Kyle and for that alone, Kenny was grateful, not to mention for putting a roof over his head and for not beating the crap out of him for everything he had done. The guy was a fucking saint. Hell's Pass was the luckiest hospital standing. And Kenny had just one last favour to ask of him.

"Dude, will you do something for me?" he said, pulling an envelope from his pocket and pushing it into Stan's hand. "Give this to Kyle."

Stan took it, looking bewildered.

"You're going to see him to say goodbye, though," he stated. Kenny shook his head and gestured to the envelope hanging from Stan's fingers.

"That is my goodbye."

Stan's eyes, which had drifted down to the envelope inquisitively, snapped back up to meet Kenny's in a flash of realisation.

"Dude. No. You can't. It's not fair. You have to say bye to him to his face."

All the breath escaped Kenny in an uneasy sigh.

"He knows when I'm leaving, Stan. He's seen the ticket. He hasn't contacted me. He doesn't want to know." Stan opened his mouth to protest, but Kenny cut him off. "It's cool. I get it. If that's how he needs to play this, let him. I've already dumped enough shit on him."

"Kenny, it isn't like that," Stan pleaded, but if Kyle's teasing lips had not been able to convince Kenny then Stan's entreaties couldn't even come close. Kenny forced a careless smile and flicked his rebellious bangs out of his eyes.

"Dude. Forget it. It's my turn now to get the hell out of this shithole town. I've finally done my time. You should be happy for me."

Sensing the futility of any argument he might make, Stan just nodded gravely.

"You're right. Good luck, man," he said, offering his hand. Kenny reached out and clasped his hand into Stan's strong grip. He could feel his smile about to crack and turned away before Stan could see that happen.

"Take care of things, dude," Kenny said, meaning 'take care of him', and then, with a final wink he was out the door, sauntering away as smoothly as he had come.

* * * * * *

As the days before Kenny's departure had slipped steadily away, Kyle had thrown himself headfirst into his work and powered through closures on three separate cases without surfacing to breathe. He needed the intense grind of hard labour to keep him grounded and to eliminate the spaces in which his mind could wander. When his boss called him in on Wednesday to praise his efficiency, Kyle was initially surprised to hear it.

"You're a credit to the firm, Broflovski, and you deserve to know that," his boss had said around a genuine grin.

Kyle had dismissed the words modestly but was unable to stop the gentle flush of pride he felt as he returned to his desk to file away closing statements and unneeded transcripts.

Kyle had chosen his career because it came naturally to him and he had already suspected that he would be good at it. But the real reason he had excelled was that beneath the fronted apathy, Kyle secretly worked damn hard and he worked damn hard because he enjoyed what he did. It might not have been spectacular. It might not have been saving the world or breaking boundaries or touching the stars. Kyle's life wasn't as glamorous as that, but he wouldn't have wanted it to be. Kyle was through faking like he wasn't okay with being conformist.

And that was why Kyle nearly tore up Kenny's letter without reading it. If it hadn't been for Stan watching him all expectantly, he would have done.

It was like that last drink too many when you already know you're too far gone. He didn't want it, he couldn't take it, but it was already in his hand. Kyle set his jaw firm and ripped open the envelope, deliberately remaining in front of Stan so he would have something to keep him from overreacting. There was a single sheet of paper inside, patterned with Kenny's scratchy writing. Kyle read it slowly. Twice.

It said:

_Then, like a little death,  
Heart in a swoon,  
You'd say, carry me,  
Eyes half-closed..._

_I'd carry you, quivering,  
From the path,  
A bird trickling its tune:  
To the hazel tree..._

_I'd speak into your mouth  
I'd go, pressing  
You to me, like a cradled child,  
Drunk with blood_

_That flows blue beneath pale skin,  
And flushes you rose:  
I'd speak frank language  
- Yours!...that only you know._

_Our forest would smell of sap  
And the sun  
Would sand fine gold across  
Their green vermillion dream._

_~ "Rambo"_

_(Because there was beauty somewhere in the madness) _

Kyle was glad he had stayed beside Stan, because that had been designed to eviscerate. All the blood in Kyle's body seemed to plummet to his feet while the first twinges of a debilitating headache scraped at his temples. Stan was looking at him with concern.

"What's it say?" he asked.

Kyle couldn't talk through the regret clogging up his throat. He dropped the sheet of paper on the table before heading to his room, where he sat on the bed and stared out of the window.

He didn't regret his decision. He was just sorry that he'd had to make it. Kenny was right. It had been something.

The tiny sliver fleck of a plane was sliding across the sky. Although it was at the wrong time and probably heading in the wrong direction, Kyle imagined that Kenny was on it. The sun began to set, turning South Park to burning amber, but Kyle stayed watching until the pale, scar-like trail left by the plane had melted completely into the glowing sky.

Stan left him to brood for exactly the right amount of time. When he did appear at Kyle's door, he came bearing coffee. The rich, throaty aroma of it tugged Kyle gently out of his daze and Stan's familiar sympathetic smile seemed to absorb half of the weight hanging over Kyle's shoulders.

Stan handed the steaming mug to Kyle, who wrapped lithe fingers around it and drew it into his chest like it could protect him from the world.

"Thanks," Kyle muttered, but didn't look at him. Stan sat down on the bed cautiously, leaving a sensible distance between them.

"Are you okay?" he asked, casting a professional eye over Kyle's tense features. Kyle's gaze flickered towards Stan then quickly away again.

"I've been more okay," he replied honestly. For Kyle, admitting that was practically bearing his heart. Stan nodded thoughtfully. After a minute, he said,

"Do you want to hear what happened to me yesterday?"

Kyle blinked, caught unawares by the sudden conversational tone. Stan was looking at him with raised eyebrows, so he nodded, while the mug of coffee was still warming life into his listless fingers.

"This guy was brought in, right?" Stan said and his smile was fresh and bright, "College freshman. Drunk off his face. Bear in mind, dude, this is at, like, four in the afternoon."

Kyle felt a wry smirk break through his black mood. They had both been there.

"Yeah,"

"Superficial second degree burns to the genital area," Stan continued, chuckling as Kyle's mouth dropped open in alarm. _That_ was somewhere that thankfully neither of them had been. "Ask me what happened."

"Dude. I don't wanna ask that," Kyle said, but the disgust in his tone could not distract from the spark of curiosity in his eyes. Stan grinned.

"You're dying to."

Kyle's mouth twitched. His eyes narrowed. There was something like a smile.

"What happened?" he asked reluctantly.

"Set fire to his pubes. With the help of an aerosol can and the burner on the stove in his dorm kitchens. A bunch of guys were doing it, filming it on their phones. He was just unlucky."

The laughter was shocked from Kyle before he had even realised he was amused. The sound rang foreign and delightful in his ears, as if it had come from somebody else. The sense of distance barely lasted a moment, though, before he was caught up in the immediacy of conversation.

"Why, though? Why the fuck would you?" he exclaimed and Stan was grinning back.

"An entire bottle of tequila."

"Ugh, my death drink," Kyle winced. Stan made an enthusiastic gesture with his hands.

"I know, dude! That's what I told him! I was all like, 'Woah, man, that's my room-mate's Drink of Doom, you want to watch yourself handling that stuff'. He didn't really get that, though. He was way too wasted to comprehend."

"Weak. God damn, I'm kinda glad I'm not in college anymore if that's what kids are up to these days," Kyle said, clutching at his coffee protectively.

"Dude, me too! You know I would have been right in there with that shit, burning up a storm."

"Texting the photos to your Dad," Kyle smirked.

"Yeah."

Stan was quiet for a moment after that, lost in thought, his smile fading bit by bit.

"You know, it's weird," he said, "but...I kind of feel like I'm only just now beginning to settle back into life again. After college. You know? College is like this bubble. You get me?"

The words hit Kyle hard, because they were so relevant that they could have been plucked right out of his own brain. Kyle was about to ask how the hell Stan had worked that out, when he realised that Stan hadn't worked it out. He was simply feeling exactly the same thing himself.

"Totally," Kyle murmured.

"It's not so bad being out of it, after all, though. Huh?"

Kyle stared at him openly. Then he let his mug-guarding hands drop loose into his lap and smiled a little, because it seemed that Stan, night-shifting, life-saving Stan, was okay with being conformist too.

"It's not," Kyle agreed.

It was sort of gloomy in the room, Kyle realised. The sun was down and the only light was the soft glow leaking in from the bulb in the hallway. It reminded him of that night in the kitchen and his fingers strayed absently to the scar still healing on his wrist. Perhaps it was because Kyle's thoughts had strayed there too that when Stan bent his head towards him, for a panicked second Kyle thought that Stan would try to kiss him. However, Stan simply pressed his forehead against Kyle's, close enough for their breath to mingle, too close for them to be able to see each other without blurring.

"I'm glad you're staying," Stan breathed, so quiet, and Kyle felt something vibrant flood through him from head to toe. The heavy shock of it stole Kyle's breath away, for it was something that he recognised too well, a distant echo of fifteen-year-old feelings.

There was more to them than friendship. Kyle knew that now with a certainty that reverberated down to his bones.

When Stan pulled back a moment later, his face showed no reflection of the revelation. He was covering a night shift as a favour, he explained and Kyle noticed for the first time the uniform brushing the chiselled angles of Stan's collarbones.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" Stan asked, and Kyle could only nod vacantly in response.

Alone in the apartment that night, Kyle slept restlessly and awoke repeatedly from sunlit dreams to find butterflies of excitement tingling inexplicably in his stomach.

When the next day dawned, it was wet and glistening, with a rainbow mirrored between the clouds and the sound of Stan's house keys jingling in the door.

* * *

A/N: Yay! Done. I hope you believed in it. This was the ending I'd deep down intended from the beginning. Thank you to so much to everyone who has read all this way. I honestly thought I was completely done with writing fanfiction, but I have had an absolute blast working my way through this. I'd love to hear people's final thoughts so please do leave a review if you have stuck it out to the very end. I latch onto things that you guys say in reviews and build on them in my writing. Who knows? Your throwaway comment could be the birth of a new story!


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